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Orthodoxy and Eetiyalism. 



SERMONS 



ON 



VITAL QUESTIONS AT ISSUE BETWEEN" POPULAR 

EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY, ESPECIALLY AS 

REPRESENTED BY THE REVIVALISM OF 

MESSRS. MOODY AND SANKEY, AND 

THE RATIONAL RELIGIOUS 

THOUGHT OF THE TIME. 



REV.JtfT. SUNDERLAND, 

Pastor of Fourth Unitarian Churchy Chicago. 



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NEW YOEK: 

JAMES MILLER, PUBLISHER, 
647 Broadway. 

1877. 
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WASHINGTON 



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COPYRIGHT, 1876, 
BY JAMES MILLER. 



Lange, Little & Co., 

Printers, Electrotypers and Bookbinders, 

Nos. 10 to 20 Astor Place, 

New York. 



"As the slaves carried in long sea voyages, doubled down 
between decks, were, for the most part, unable to walk when 
the prison -ship had landed, and they were ordered out into the 
open air, so we all, borne for hundreds of years in the theo- 
logical prison-ships, landing at last, find ourselves almost 
unable to walk or stand alone on the open shore of this great 
century." — Prof. Swing. 

" New times demand new measures and new men : 
The world advances, and in time outgrows 
The laws that in our fathers 7 time were best ; 
And, doubtless, after us, some purer scheme 
Will be shaped out by wiser men than we, 
Made wiser by the steady growth of truth." 

— Lowdl. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Orthodoxy the Worst Enemy of Christianity 9 

The Drift of the Age Away from Religion 33 

A Rational Faith 58 

The Desire for Infallibilities in Religion 69 

A Plea for Reasonable Treatment of the Bible.. 85 

The Success of Messrs. Moody and Sankey 102 

The Moody and Sankey Revival as an Instrumen- 
tality for " Reaching the Masses." 118 

The Ideal Church 138 

The Life that Now is 155 

In what Sense is Jesus a " Saviour " 1 172 

Some Religious Lessons to be Learned from Sci- 
entists 190 

Darwinism and Religion 206 

A Chapter of Personal Experience 224 



ORTHODOXY 
THE WORST ENEMY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



" After the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God 
of my fathers." — Acts xxiv. 14. 

It is always incumbent upon a people who persist 
in maintaining a different form of religious doctrine 
or worship from the majority of the people of the com- 
munity or country in which they dwell, to be ready, 
on fitting occasion, to give a reason. 

I shall occupy the time before us this morning in 
stating, as briefly and plainly as I can, why I, for 
one, find myself compelled to take my stand outside 
of so-called orthodoxy, and to worship the God of 
my fathers in the way that the majority of the peo- 
ple of this country and Christendom call heresy. 

I believe that nothing of more value than Chris- 
tianity ever made its appearance among men. 

But I believe that what is generally understood by 
Christianity to-day, whether in Protestant countries 
or Catholic, is not pure, original Christianity, as 
Jesus taught Christianity by lip and life, but that 
Christianity corrupted, and corrupted by the intro- 
duction of elements entirely foreign to it and essen- 
tially bad. 

These bad elements do not, of course, more than 
to a limited extent, destroy the Christianity with 
which they are mixed ; but they are, nevertheless, so 
1* 



10 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

far as tliey themselves go, corrupting and harmful 
to it. 

What are these bad and corrupting elements? 
Without hesitation, I answer, in my judgment, first 
of all, and worst of ajl, is that religious philosophy, 
or theology, or series of doctrines about God and 
man and religion, which wears the popular name of 
orthodoxy, and wilich includes in its list, among 
others, the doctrine of the fall of the race in Adam ; 
the doctrine of universal total depravity ; the doc- 
trine of an endless hell ; the doctrine of the Trinity ; 
the doctrine of the coining down to earth of the 
second person of the Trinity, to die in man's place, 
and so satisfy God's justice ; the doctrine that follow- 
ing Christ, or believing in Christ, or being saved by 
Christ, means in any sense accepting the idea that 
Jesus died to reconcile God to men, or to make God 
one whit more willing or ready or able to save men, 
that is, one whit more a Father than he always has 
been ; and finally, not to mention any others, the 
doctrine of Jesus-worship, which is so popular in our 
time, as practically, in large measure, to crowd out 
worship of God. 

I say of all the things that wound Christianity to- 
day and make it bleed ; of all the things that cor- 
rupt and x>oison it, and tend to make it other than 
the sweet and healthful and divine thing which it 
was w 7 hen Jesus gave it new to the world ; of all the 
things w r hich tend to make it an offense to the best 
thought and intelligence of the time, without hesita- 
tion I name, as in my judgment first and worst, the 
system of theology which includes these doctrines which 
I have mentioned, and which is known popularly as or- 
thodoxy. 

Do you ask why I thus judge orthodoxy to be the 



THE WORST ENEMY OF CHRISTIANITY. 11 

worst foe which Christianity has to-day ? I answer, 
in a general way, first, because of where it is, and 
second, because of what it is. 

As to where it is, it is inside the church. If it 
were outside, it would be comparatively harmless, 
for it is always comparatively easy to defend against 
on outside enemy. But when an enemy gets inside 
the camp, as orthodoxy has done, then is the diffi- 
culty and the danger vastly increased. 

Long ago, in darker ages, orthodoxy fought its 
way into the very heart of the Christian church, and 
there, by intolerance and proscription and every art, 
intrenched itself. And now, in our day of greater 
light, when men begin to discover that it is not 
Christianity, but an intruder and a foe, it is so 
strongly fortified in its position that it is only with 
the greatest difficulty that it can be stirred. In- 
deed, it has actually, to a veiy large extent, cap- 
tured the Christian religion. And so to-day, wher- 
ever we go, we find orthodoxy preaching in the 
most unblushing manner that it is Christianity, and 
that everything opposed to it is not Christianity. 
It is mainly because of this condition of things that 
that body of, on the whole, remarkably intelligent 
and sincere men, known as the Free Eeligionists, 
have taken their stand outside of the Christian 
name. So plainly do they see that the Christian 
name has been captured, and now stands identified 
in the minds of the mass of mankind with ortho- 
doxy — something which they believe to be false and 
degrading — that they declare it to be hopeless to 
attempt to capture the name back again. 

But, for one, while I feel the force of their 
reasoning, I cannot acquiesce in their conclusion. 
I don ? t think it is hopeless to attempt to capture it 



12 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

back again. It will take a long hard battle to do it, 
but all the better forces of our civilization are cer- 
tainly rallying to our side to help us, and we shall, 
by and by, accomplish it. The transformations of 
history are very strange and often dark. But, 
amidst them all, this we know — 

" Truth crushed to earth shall rise again ; 
The eternal years of God are hers." 

And this also we know, "Every plant that my 
heavenly Father hath not planted shall w (sooner or 
later) " be rooted up." 

But, furthermore, I believe orthodoxy to be the 
worst foe against which Christianity has to contend 
to-day, not only because it has got for itself an in- 
side position, and claims that it alone is Christianity, 
but also because it is so thoroughly anti* Christian in 
its nature. Mark what I say, so that I shall not 
be misunderstood. I do not say that people who 
believe in orthodoxy are not Christian people. 
Many of them, so far as character and practical life 
are concerned, unquestionably are Christian people. 
However, their Christianity does in no sense lie in 
their orthodoxy. On the contrary, it is something 
incomparably higher, broader, sweeter, diviner, and 
altogether a different thing from their orthodoxy. 
Their Christianity would remain all the same if 
their orthodoxy should vanish ; and, indeed, would 
only have found a more vigorous and worthy 
growth if it had never had the incubus of orthodoxy 
to weigh it down at all. 

So that my position is, that, whereas orthodox 
people are, large numbers of them, undoubtedly 
truly Christian in character and life, notwithstand- 
ing their theology, yet orthodoxy as a theology, in 



THE WORST ENEMY OF CHRISTIANITY. 13 

all that which is peculiar to it as orthodoxy, is essen- 
tially and eternally anti-Christian, and has always 
and everywhere hurt and not helped the cause of 
true religion on the earth. 

But, to come down from the general to the specific, 
precisely in what respects is it anti-Christian ? I re- 
ply, chiefly in four respects : 

First. Orthodoxy is not taught by Christ, but, in- 
stead, contradicts many of his plainest teachings. 

Second. It is unreasonable. 

Third. It is essentially immoral. 

Fourth. The time and manner of its usurpation of 
its place in the Christian church can be clearly traced 
in history. 

1. The first specific charge, then, that I make 
against orthodoxy is, that it is not taught by Jesusy 
but, instead, is clearly in contradiction with many of 
his most prominent and oft-repeated teachings. 

To begin with, Jesus nowhere gives any intimation 
that he knows anything about any Trinity ; he ex- 
pressly calls his Father the only God ; he usually 
calls himself the son of man ; he never calls himself 
by any title which even hints that he is God ; he de- 
clares outright that his Father is greater than he. 
And, as to his unity with the Father, he declares it 
to be of the same kind with his unity with his disci- 
ples, and with God's unity with all loving and obe- 
dient children, to wit, plainly, unity of spirit, of love, 
of aim, of desire. 

Orthodoxy, on the contrary, declares that there 
are three Gods in one God (not simply a mysterious, 
but a self-contradictory statement), and that Jesus 
is the true God, — eternal, omnipotent, and the Crea- 
tor of the world. 

Again, Jesus teaches th&t the best and truest con- 



14 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

ception of God which we can get is that of a Father, 
who always loved and always will love every human 
child of his, who forever desires his children's best 
welfare, and neither has his heart steeled against 
them when they sin, so that he does not wish to 
save them, nor his hands tied by figments of law 
or justice, so that he cannot save them ; but, instead, 
that he is a Father who waits all the day long for 
his erring children to come back to him, even as the 
father in the parable of the Prodigal Son waited, — 
ready, rejoiced, glad to forgive always ; nor does he 
want anybody to die in their place either, before he 
forgives, any more than the father of the Prodigal 
wanted somebody to suffer death before he would 
forgive his repentant boy. Contrary to all this, how- 
ever, orthodoxy teaches that God has always been 
angry with his human children when they have sin- 
ned, and either could not or would not (you may 
take which horn of the dilemma you choose) forgive 
them, no matter how deeply they repented, until an 
innocent person had died in their stead. 

Again, Jesus taught that salvation is primarily 
and essentially salvation from sinning, that is, salva- 
tion into present holiness and consequent happiness. 
Orthodoxy, on the other hand, teaches that the great 
and all-important idea of salvation is escape from end- 
less penal torment in the next world, and entrance 
into a far-away heaven, from which, certainly, a large 
part of those whom we love most will be shut out. 

Again, Jesus taught that the kingdom of heaven 
comes not " with observation/' but is " within you," 
— a silent, hidden thing of the heart and conscience 
and character, beginning in the smallest germs of 
good planted in the mind, and growing and develop- 
ing, silently and naturally, as the influence of leaven 



THE WORST ENEMY OF CHRISTIANITY. 15 

spreads in meal, or as corn grows in the field, — first 
the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the 
ear. 

Orthodoxy teaches, on the other hand, — is it too 
much to say so ? — that the kingdom of heaven comes 
with observation, and lo ! heres, and lo ! theres ; with 
crowds ; with excitements of preaching and singing 
and exhortation ; with loud professions ; with conver- 
sions blazoned to the world ; and all that kind of 
thing. 

Again, Jesus taught that they who in the judgment- 
day shall be accepted, and hear the welcome words, 
" Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom 
prepared for you from the foundation of the world," 
will not be those who have said " Lord, Lord, have we 
not prophesied in thy name ? n but those who have 
done the ivill of the Father by feeding the hungry, 
clothing the naked, visiting the sick, receiving the 
stranger, ministering to the wants of the poor and 
suffering of their brother human beings in this world. 
Orthodoxy, on the contrary, teaches that those who 
shall be accepted at the judgment are those who have 
simply believed that — 

" Nothing, either great or small, 
Remained for them to do ; 
Jesus died and paid it all, 
Yes, all the debt they owe," 

Finally, to mention no other antagonisms between 
the two, Jesus taught that the only proper object of 
worship for human beings is God, the Father of all, 
even inditing a form of prayer beginning, " Our Father 
w T ho art in heaven," and never giving any hint of 
encouragement to anything whatever which even 
looked in the direction of worship of himself. Ortho- 
doxy, however, that is to say, Protestant orthodoxy 



16 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

of the so-called evangelical or revivalistic type, which 
has been so popular in England and America of late, 
has reversed all this, and has erected Jesus into, not 
simply an object, but into the principal object of hu- 
man worship. Virgin Mary worship is scarcely more 
conspicuous in Catholic countries than Jesus wor- 
ship is getting to be in this country. Not only in 
preaching, but in hymns and prayers, God has fallen 
quite into the background, and Jesus has taken His 
place. 

Other points of antagonism between orthodoxy and 
the teaching of Jesus, nearly or quite as important 
as these, remain, but I must pass them by. I have 
only time for a word or two of a general character. 

Not long ago, in conversing with a brother minister 
regarding the Sermon on the Mount, he remarked 
that this sermon of Christ was very noticeable, and 
for several reasons. And, first of all, it was noticeable 
for what it did not say, — quite as noticeable for that 
as for what it did say, — for the truth could not be 
escaped, he urged, that, in that most lengthy and 
complete of all Jesus' public discourses, in which he 
laid down the truths he had to offer men more fully 
than anywhere else, the great Teacher altogether 
omitted everything which comes under the head of 
the doctrines of orthodoxy. He explained and set 
forth the Christianity which he had to offer to men, 
with all these left out. And if we follow the teach- 
ings of Jesus right on from that time to the end, I 
do not know how any one can deny that we always 
find him setting forth a Christianity which has all 
these doctrines which are peculiar to orthodoxy 
persistently left out. The Trinity, Adam's fall, total 
depravity, the " plan of redemption," and every other 
one, is conspicuously wanting. The only seeming ex- 



THE WORST ENEMY OP CHRISTIANITY. 17 

ception is the doctrine of an eternal hell. But, even 
in this, the exception is rather seeming than real ; for, 
in those cases where Jesus refers to punishment in 
the next world, and uses the words " everlasting " or 
" eternal" in connection with it, in every case the 
Greek Aicav or Aioovio^ translated eternal or ever- 
lasting, is the same word which is used repeatedly 
in other places in the New Testament in connection 
with things which come to an end. 

And, if the doctrines of orthodoxy are not sup- 
ported, but, on the contrary, are nearly all of them 
plainly denied and combated by the teachings of 
Jesus, so also, I hold that they are in like manner con- 
futed, instead of established, by the Bible as a whole. 
I grant that there is more which seems to uphold 
these doctrines in other parts of the Bible than in 
the Gospels. And you notice that when any one 
comes before you, attempting to prove almost any 
doctrine of orthodoxy, as a rule he goes for his main 
proofs, not to the great Teacher, but to some disciple, 
or some writer of the Old Testament, whose light 
was not so clear, and whose understanding of these 
things was not so perfect as that of Jesus. In other 
words, he takes you into the candlelight, and not 
into the sunlight. Why don't he take you into the 
sunlight of the Sermon on the Mount, and the four- 
teenth, fifteenth, sixteenth of John, and the Gospels 
generally, to see how these subjects appear there? 
If they are the great central doctrines of Christiani- 
ty, as is claimed, certainly they will be found in the 
teachings of the Founder of Christianity. But, no ; 
instead of taking you there, he takes you to the writ- 
ings of men who lived before Jesus, and had only the 
light of Judaism 5 or else to the disciples, who were 
far below their Master, and who certainly, all through 



18 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

the ministry of Jesus, were forever misunderstand- 
ing him, even with regard to the plainest things of 
his teachings. And yet, I cannot admit that even 
their writings, interpreted candidly and in the light 
of a broad culture, do really teach one of the dis- 
tinctive doctrines of orthodoxy. And this is notice- 
able, that those writers of the Bible who are furthest 
advanced, and most near to the intellectual, moral, 
and spiritual level of Jesus, always give least of even 
seeming countenance to the doctrines of orthodoxy, 
and harmonize most fully and clearly with Jesus in 
teaching truths that antagonize orthodoxy at every 
point. But I have dwelt upon this part of my sub- 
ject quite too long, though I should be glad, if time 
allowed, to push it much further still. I go forward 
now to my next point. 

2. Orthodoxy is irrational. I charge it with being 
quite as antagonistic to reason as it is to the teachings 
of Christ. And this is something not to be regarded 
lightly. It disparages reason, and says reason is of 
the natural man, and to be held always in subordina- 
tion to faith. The thing of most importance to be 
done, the thing most pleasing to Heaven, the thing 
without which there is no safety or salvation, is to 
believe, simply believe. And the explanation of the 
mystery, why the old theology is able to retain its 
hold upon the minds of the people as it does, lies, 
more than anywhere else, in just this fact, that it 
teaches that men must not doubt, must not question; 
they must believe. To use their reason in connec- 
tion with religion, beyond a certain very narrow 
limit, is of the devil. 

I shall never forget my own long and bitter ex- 
perience in this particular. After doubts and mis- 
givings about different doctrines of the old theology 



THE WORST ENEMY OF CHRISTIANITY. 19 

began to arise in my mind and trouble me, I was 
kept on the rack of mental torture for months and 
years, by being told by every one whom I went to 
for light that my doubts were all temptations of the 
Evil One; I must pray against them ; I must struggle 
against them ; I must put them down ; for the glo- 
rious doctrines of the true faith were doctrines to be 
reverently and implicitly believed, and not to be 
much reasoned about. The human reason was a 
depraved faculty. It had fallen with the fall of Adam, 
and so was to be distrusted. 

Well, of course, a theology that has once obtained 
a hold upon the popular mind — and this theology 
got its hold, we must remember, in ages darker than 
ours, it could not do it now — but having once ob- 
tained a hold upon the popular mind, of course that 
hold would be very firm and hard to shake, because 
it guards so securely the initial — checking its ad- 
herents the moment they begin to doubt, saying, You 
must not doubt or question or reason, for all this is 
the very essence of sin. 

And, of course, too, a theology which defends 
itself by forbidding or limiting inquiry, and by taboo- 
ing reason, must necessarily be an unreasonable 
theology. It declares itself to be devoid of reason in 
its very condemnation of reason. If it were itself 
rational, it would have no objection to being sub- 
mitted to the tests of reason and inquiry. Things 
born of the light do not fear the light. 

The most intelligent supporters of orthodoxy know 
only too well that every increase of light and intelli- 
gence tends to show the weakness of their theology. 
That is the reason why that theology has fought 
science as it has. 

Orthodoxy seems instinctively to have perceived 



20 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

from the beginning that science is its enemy. And 
so, while it has made loud professions of friendship to 
science, and while many of its believers have been 
truly devoted to science, and in not a few cases have 
been themselves the promoters of science, yet, as a 
theology, it has not been friendly, but hostile to 
science. Scarcely anything in the history of civili- 
zation has been more conspicuous than was its bitter 
opposition to the Copernican system of astronomy, 
unless it be its later quite as ridiculous opposition to 
the science of geology. And to-day it is holding at 
arm's-length a large proportion of the leading scien- 
tific men of the world — especially of Germany, 
France, and Great Britain, and these are the lead- 
ing scientific nations — and heaping upon these men 
such epithets as "skeptic," u infidel," and the like. 
And for what other reason, only because it sees 
that the tendency of these sciences and of the in- 
vestigations of these men is to sap the foundation on 
which its leading doctrines stand ? It grows uneasy, 
it trembles at the incoming of new light, because it 
knows not w r hat one of its theories will next melt 
away before it as a phantom of the night. No ; the 
investigations of reason have already made so fearful 
havoc with the doctrines of orthodoxy that I do not 
wonder that the cry should be sounded with re- 
doubled fervor all along the line — "Believe, only 
believe ; have faith ; trust and accept, even when 
you can't see; and, above all things, do not put your 
confidence in reason." I say, I don't wonder that 
this cry is sounded forth, with almost desperate ear- 
nestness, all along the line of the orthodox front. 

3. I come now to my third point. Orthodoxy is 
immoral. I affirm that it is not only, first, contrary 
to the teachings of Jesus, and secondly, irrational, 



THE WORST ENEMY OF CHRISTIANITY. 21 

but that it is, thirdly, essentially immoral. Mind, I 
do not say that people who believe in orthodoxy are 
necessarily immoral people ; nor do I say that men 
who preach orthodoxy never preach in addition to it, 
or, more accurately speaking, in opposition to it, 
morality. Certainly some men of morals irreproach- 
able are men who undoubtedly regard orthodoxy as 
true ; and some preachers, who preach with great 
vigor and power against sin and in favor of righteous- 
ness, are preachers of orthodox communions. What 
I say is, that orthodoxy as a theology is mixed up, 
through and through, with ideas that are immoral in 
their tendency, and that nearly or quite every essen- 
tial doctrine of it is either founded upon, or else 
necessarily involves, principles which, when legiti- 
mately carried out, and just in so far as they are legit- 
imately carried out, lead to the degradation of God 
and the moral injury of men. 

The fact that these tendencies are to some extent 
practically checked, and that these principles do not 
always flow out to their legitimate results, does not 
change the nature of the case at all. If I place upon 
my dinner-table bread that has poison in it, and serve 
it out to my family, it is only a poor excuse that I 
also serve out with it other food that is healthful ; or, 
even that I provide to some extent medicines and 
antidotes to the poison. The fact is, poison is. poison, 
whether material poison or moral, and should never 
be given into either stomach or brain ; nor can it be 
with impunity. 

Let us for a moment look at a few of the leading 
doctrines of orthodoxy separately. 

For example, the doctrine so earnestly preached of 
the infallibility of the Bible; or the idea concerning 
the Bible, that every word of it is a word of God, 



22 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

and that the book must be accepted from cover to 
cover, with no reservations. See what that doctrine 
involves. It involves believing that it was right, for 
instance, for Joshua to conquer Canaan; to drive 
out a peaceful people, who had never offended him, 
from their homes ; and moreover to murder, not only 
men, but helpless ivomen and children, by thousands 
and thousands ; for we are given to understand that 
all this was with the approval of God. And some of 
the most outrageous cases of all, of cruelty and whole- 
sale murder of women and children, we are expressly 
told w r ere by command of God. Now what kind of 
morality is that ? 

So also this view involves believing that it was 
right for David to pray against his enemies the most 
vindictive and cruel and shocking prayers ; as, that 
they might be cut off, destroyed, have their bones 
broken ; that God's vengeance might be upon them ; 
that they might never be forgiven ; that their wives 
and children might come to want, and find none to 
help them ; that their little ones might be dashed 
against a stone. I need scarcely ask whether it was 
right for David to pray for such things. And yet 
they appear in the Psalms, and if the Psalms are all 
inspired so as to be infallibly perfect, then these 
dreadful and revengeful imprecations must be ac- 
cepted as of God. 

Again, you recollect the conduct of Jacob ; how 
that with the connivance of his mother he deceived 
his blind old dying father, and made that father 
think he was his elder brother Esau, and so got his 
father's blessing, which Esau ought to have had; 
thus by dishonesty of the most flagrant kind sup- 
planting his brother, and getting an advantage over 
him about the greatest possible for a man in those 



THE WORST ENEMY OF CHRISTIANITY. 23 

times to gain over another. And no word of con- 
demnation is ever breathed against Jacob, in the 
Bible account, but, on the contrary, he is everywhere 
represented as the especial favorite of God. What 
kind of morali ty is that ? But every man who claims 
that the Bible is infallible, and to be accepted as 
every part and particle from God, and perfect, is 
obliged to receive all these and such like things (and 
there are scores of like cases in the Old Testament) 
as right. Now what is that but undermining morali- 
ty, and degrading the character of God, in the most 
awful manner ? 

So, then, who will deny that the orthodox . doc- 
trine of the infallibility of the Bible, for one, is an 
immoral doctrine ? 

But turn from this to the doctrine of the fall of 
the race in Adam. That doctrine teaches that be- 
cause of the sin of one man, the whole human race, 
not one of them yet born, and some of them not to 
come into existence until thousands of years later, 
are held to be guilty, and so terribly guilty that the 
punishment provided for them is eternal torment. 
Could anything be imagined more palpably unjust, 
and morally outrageous ? 

Then, again, the doctrine of election and foreordi- 
nation. This teaches in essence that a father chooses 
and appoints from all eternity some of his own 
children to be saved and others to be lost. What 
kind of paternity is it that can do that ? Could you 
do it, or I, even poor, erring, imperfect beings as we 
are ? And if not, then think you God can, who is 
the perfect Father, infinite in power and wisdom, and 
goodness and love ? 

And the doctrine of the atonement as taught by 
orthodoxy ! According to this doctrine, the race is 



24 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

guilty, Jesus is innocent. The innocent is punished, 
the guilty go free. What kind of morality is that? 
Why was the innocent punished, do I ask ? So 
that justice might be satisfied, it is answered. But, 
I reply, that is precisely the way that justice is dis- 
satisfied. Justice, that is real justice and not a pre- 
tense, never finds satisfaction in the punishment of 
innocence, no matter if the innocent party does offer 
himself of his own accord to be punished. To sat- 
isfy the demands of justice, the guilty must either 
be punished, or else forgiven, forgiven squarely and 
honestly for good cause. And in any transaction of 
punishing an innocent person, and playing it was 
the guilty person that was punished, justice can 
have no part or lot. It washes its hands of all such 
kind of thing. 

Finally, the doctrine of sudden conversion, — the 
teaching that one may step in a moment out of a 
condition deserving hell, into a condition fit for 
heaven, by simply performing the mental act of be- 
lieving something ! What a strange overturning of 
moral order does this involve ! Suppose a case in 
point. Suppose here is a man who has lived a life 
as bad as a man can live. He has made a brute of 
himself; he has blasphemed God, and he has injured 
his fellow-men all in his power. He is a liar, a thief, an 
adulterer, a murderer. At last, after many escapes, 
he is arrested, tried, sentenced to death. Finding 
that he is really caught, with no chance for escape, 
he becomes alarmed. He is told to believe in Jesus 
and he shall be saved. He is converted, hung, 
goes to heaven. Here is another man who has lived 
a life most exemplary ; he has been a dutiful son, a 
loving husband, a faithful father, a good citizen ; 
a helper of the poor, and needy, and suffering, 



THE WORST ENEMY OF CHRISTIANITY. 25 

always ; a friend to every good cause ; even a sup- 
porter of the church, and a sustainer of religion ; and, 
in his own way, according to the dictates of his own 
conscience, a worshiper of God. But he has never 
passed through that experience of mind called by 
orthodoxy believing in Jesus. He dies — is lost. The 
murderer who said " I believe," lifts up his eyes in 
heaven; the good man who omitted to say that, 
lifts up his in hell. 

Is that kind of doctrine moral ? or is it not rather 
immoral in the worst way ? Indeed, could any teach- 
ing be devised tending more strongly to put a pre- 
mium upon vice and crime, and discourage virtue 
and morality, than that ? If so, I see not what it is. 

Other doctrines of orthodoxy might be shown to 
be as bad as these which I have mentioned. But I 
have gone far enough. If the specimens already 
looked at are not enough to condemn the whole sys- 
tem as in its nature dishonoring to God and destruc- 
tive of virtue in men, then I am incapable of judging. 

4. I come now to my fourth and last charge 
against orthodoxy, viz., that the time can be traced 
easily and clearly in the history of the Christian church, 
when all the more prominent of its doctrines arose, 
and the way in which they arose and foisted themselves 
upon Christianity. 

The doctrine of the Trinity came into being, as is 
well known, in the third and fourth centuries, having 
had its origin, unquestionably, in the speculative and 
exceedingly mystical Neo-Platonism of Alexandria. 
A theological battle arose over it, which raged 
throughout Christendom, tearing in pieces the Greek 
and Latin churches in the most terrible manner, and 
awakening everywhere alienation and hatred where 
before had been peace and harmony. The council 
2 



26 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

of Mce, which established it as orthodox, and to be 
henceforth the faith of the church , for a long time 
hung in even balance over it ; and when at last the 
council turned in favor of the doctrine, it was by a 
majority so small as to be insignificant ; while there 
is not wanting evidence (and this from orthodox 
sources) that the real influence which turned the 
scale was the Emperor Constantine, a man who 
shaped all his course by what he thought policy, 
having several different times in his life changed 
back and forth between Unitarianism and Trinitari- 
anism. And so, but for the influence of the crafty 
emperor, who happened at that moment to be train- 
ing with the Trinitarian party, Unitarianism, the be- 
lief of the church up to that time, instead of Trini- 
tarianism, would doubtless have been the prevailing 
doctrine of Christendom to-day. 

Coming down a century or two, we find another 
new doctrine, spun out of the sombre and meta- 
physical brain of Augustine, presenting itself to the 
church. This time it is the doctrine of total deprav- 
ity. The controversy over this doctrine (called in 
history the Pelagian controversy) desolated Christen- 
dom for well-nigh a century. At last it carried in 
favor of the speculation of Augustine, and from that 
time total depravity, with the fall of the race in 
Adam, was a part of the faith of the Christian 
church. 

Coming on down to the twelfth century, we find 
the doctrine of the atonement or the vicarious sacri- 
fice of Christ appearing. The early church held to 
no such doctrine. For a long time after the death 
of Christ and the apostles, Christians were content 
with the simple representations and statements of 
the New Testament. And when at last, as the 



THE WORST ENEMY OF CHRISTIANITY. 27 

metaphysical ages came on, they began to frame 
speculative theories, the first theory they framed, 
looking at all in the direction of the modern doctrine 
of the atonement, was that Jesus died, not to pay 
any debt due to God, or to appease the wrath of 
God, or anything of that kind, but that he died to 
pay a debt to the devil. A compact had been 
entered into between God and the devil, that if God 
would give Christ over into his (the devil's) hands 
to afflict him and put him to death, he (the devil) 
would relinquish his claim upon the human race, and 
allow God to save them from hell. And that doc- 
trine held sway as the received doctrine, until the 
twelfth century, when the great scholastic theologian 
Anselm published a book (Cur Deus Homo, in the 
year 1109), containing a new doctrine, to the effect 
that Jesus died as a sacrifice demanded by God's 
justice. God's justice demanded the damnation of 
the whole race because of their fall in Adam ; and 
Christ died in their place, so that they might go free. 
Well, this doctrine, propounded as it was in the very 
darkest time of the mediaeval night, and enforced by 
the great intellectual ability of its author, at last 
won its way to acceptance. And so we have it be- 
fore us to-day, as a doctrine which we are asked to 
receive, or forfeit salvation. 

Coming down the stream of history a little further, 
we find in the sixteenth century, Luther's doctrine 
of justification by faith appearing ; and a little far- 
ther still, that cluster of doctrines known as Cal- 
vinism. 

The history of the rise of all these doctrines was 
essentially similar. Each had its origin in the brain 
of some theological speculator; each won its way to 
acceptance in an age of comparative, and some of 



28 0KTH0D0XY AND EEVIVALISM. 

very great darkness, and only after a battle which 
long raged, and tore the church into hostile factions, 
in the most sad and dreadful way. 

And now, in our day, all these different doctrines 
have the audacity to come before intelligent people, 
and demand to be accepted as Christian. Born at 
the times they were, and coming into the Christian 
church as they did, not one of them being held by 
the church in its earliest and purest ages, they yet 
have the face to claim to be the very essence of 
Christianity. To say the least, it is strange, passing 
strange ! But enough. 

So much, then, for some of the more prominent of 
the reasons I have to offer why I, for one at least, 
find myself comx>elled to reject orthodoxy, as in no 
true sense Christianity, and to take my stand as a 
Christian outside of it, to worship the God of my 
fathers after the way that so many call heresy. A 
thought or two more, and I have done. 

We often hear laments of the decline of Christian- 
ity ; of the skepticism and materialism of the age ; 
of the indifference of the more intelligent and educat- 
ed classes to religion. It is said that physicians are 
generally skeptics ; that lawyers are seldom attend- 
ants upon churches ; that our leading editors and 
authors usually manifest little interest in spiritual 
things; that our leading politicians and statesmen 
are becoming more and more lost to all care for the 
Christian religion except as a sort of political power 
with the masses, to be turned to their own personal 
advantage. So also, it is often remarked that the lead- 
ing business men of our great cities are coming to be 
less and less church-goers. Now what does all this 
mean ? It has a meaning. What is it ? Ah ! these 
things which I have been uttering in your ears this 



THE WORST ENEMY OF CHRISTIANITY. 29 

morning only tell too plainly what it means. It 
means nothing less startling than that the intelligence 
of this age and this country is growing away from a 
religion too narrow and too unreasonable for it. 
Things are taught as the essence of religion which 
vast numbers of these men have come to see are too 
trivial and absurd for them to give their time and at- 
tention to. Accordingly, while they are respectful to 
the institutions of Christianity, and in many cases rent 
pews and subscribe toward building churches, and 
even go so far as to favor their wives and children go- 
ing to church, they themselves slip out of going just as 
much as possible ; preferring to stay at home and read 
Tyndall, and Spencer, and Proctor, and the reviews, 
and their daily papers, from which they can get 
something that commends itself to their reason and 
feeds their intelligence, rather than go to churches 
and hear doctrines which they have heard a hundred 
times, and which appear the more plainly absurd 
the oftener they hear them. It is not very long since 
the New York Evangelist, speaking on this subject, 
used such startling words as these : " Among all 
the earnest-minded young men, who are at this mo- 
ment leading in thought and action in America, 
we venture to say that four-fifths are skeptical of 
the great historical facts of Christianity. What is 
taught as Christian doctrine by the churches, claims 
none of their consideration, and there is among them 
a general distrust of the clergy, as a class, and an 
utter disgust with the very aspect of modern Chris- 
tianity and of church worship. This skepticism is 
not flippant ; little is said about it. It is not a pecu- 
liarity of radicals and fanatics ; most of those who 
hold it are men of calm and even balance of mind, 
and belong to no class of ultraists. It is not worldly 



30 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

and selfish. Nay, the doubters lead in the bravest 
and most self-denying enterprises of the day." 

Said the late Eev. Dr. Newman, in a recent ad- 
dress as reported in a secular paper : " Within the 
next decade, ay, and within the next five years, 
Christianity will be tried as it never has been tried 
before. There are men in England and America to- 
day, who will bring to the assault a ripeness of 
scholarship, a power of intellect, and a breadth of 
view, unequaled by the past, and there are men and 
women before me to-night who are destined to have 
their faith terribly shaken." 

It is not long since Bishop Simpson publicly de- 
clared that the time had passed by when the Chris- 
tian church (meaning, of course, the orthodox Chris- 
tian church) could recruit its ranks any longer from 
grown men ; the only hope that was left to it now 
was the young, especially the children ; therefore he 
exhorted his religious brethren to give double dili- 
gence to their efforts to get firm hold of the children 
before they grew up, and, of course, got so intelligent 
(though he did not express it in exactly these words) 
as to turn their backs upon the churches. 

What do all these things mean ? Are any so blind 
that they cannot see? Alas! alas! They mean, 
what these men whose words I quote are beginning 
to discern, that Christianity is entering upon a crisis 
such as it has never known before, not even in the 
persecutions of the second century, or the throes 
of the German reformation. But they mean vastly 
more than that ; and the strange thing is that these 
men do not see it. They mean that the occasion and 
cause of the crisis is primarily the astounding folly 
and blindness of the Christian church itself in con- 
tinuing, in the very face of all the light and intelli- 



THE WORST ENEMY OF CHRISTIANITY. 31 

gence of the age, to cling to a theology which that 
light and that intelligence are so fast and plainly dis- 
covering to be hollow and false. 

The intelligence of the age does drift away from 
the teaching of the churches of this age, because it 
ought to ; and it will continue so to drift, more and 
more, as surely as that truth is truth, and God rules, 
until the time comes when the Christian churches 
shall have a theology to offer men which does not 
oppose the plainest teachings of the Founder of 
Christianity; which does not outrage reason and 
common-sense ; which does not violate man's deep- 
est sense of justice and right; and which has not 
plainly foisted itself upon Christianity from without, 
as orthodoxy has done. 

I tell you that men who stand up to-day in this en- 
lightened age and county, to reaffirm the old decay- 
ing doctrines of orthodoxy, are just bombarding the 
best brain and culture of the country right out of the 
churches. No matter if these men do draw crowded 
houses, and win what for the moment seems a success. 
It is all the same. Their success is a rushlight. A 
whiff of sober reason blows it out. In the long run, 
in the deep and permanent and real effect which they 
produce they drive the best thought and intelligence 
of the country away from Christianity, and, sad as it 
is to say it, in the direction of disbelief of all religion. 
The only thing that can hold the intelligence of this 
age, not to say the certainly larger intelligence still of 
the ages coming, is a Christianity which is pure, rea- 
sonable, clear and clean from the degrading survivals 
of darker centuries — in a word, Christian. Such a 
Christianity, once held up in its divine beauty, can- 
not fail to commend itself to the earnest and devout 
minds of this and every other age. 



32 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

And believe me, friends and brothers, such a Chris- 
tianity is the certain inheritor of the future. We 
may not live to see the day when it shall prevail ; 
but prevail it must and will, by and by, by and by. 

Northfield, Mass., October, 1875. 



THE DRIFT OF THE AGE AWAY FROM RELIGION. 



"Hecalleth to me out of Seir, 'Watchman, what of the 
night ? ' The watchman said : ' The morning cometh, and also 
the night. ' " — Isaiah xxi. 11. 

No man who keeps his eyes open, living in this 
country, to-day, can liave failed to observe that there 
is going on all over Christendom a tremendous popu- 
lar drift away from the churches, away from belief 
in the Bible, in the general direction of separation 
from everything that has hitherto been known as re- 
ligion. This drift is not confined to any country, or 
any order of culture, or any social class. True, it 
takes different forms and aspects, and goes, perhaps, 
to different lengths in different nations, and among 
different social and intellectual grades of persons. 
But it is going on powerfully, with something of ebb 
and flow, but with, on the whole, unquestionably per- 
sistent advance, everywhere we look, on this side the 
sea and on the other, alike in Catholic and Protestant 
countries. In France there are comparatively few 
men of any eminence in science, we are told, who are 
not in their philosophy materialists ; and, that mate- 
rialism and disregard for everything connected with 
religion is very widely manifested among the masses 
of the French people, is what not only every traveler, 
but every intelligent stayer-at-home knows well. In 
Italy, and other Catholic countries, it is much the 
2* 



34 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

same. Says the correspondent of the New York Times 
in a recent letter : " There is more of positively de- 
clared unbelief in Italy than we are apt to imagine. 
No one can see clearly yet how Italy, so far as 
concerns the theology or religion of the country, is 
coming out. The spirit of protest is universal, ex- 
cept among the ignorant classes of the rural dis- 
tricts." In Germany, the popular indifference to re- 
ligion is scarcely less marked, though it takes on 
somewhat different forms. The popularity of such 
writers as Buechner, Feuerbach, and Haeckel, as 
well as the poverty of attendance at the churches 
throughout Germany generally, is proof of this. 
Says Prof. Ohristlieb, one of the most eminent of 
living orthodox German theologians and preachers : 
"The great mass of our educated, and yet more of 
our half-educated classes is alienated from all posi- 
tive, definite Christianity : our diplomatists, almost 
without exception, and the great majority of our 
officers in the army, our government officials, law- 
yers, doctors, teachers of all kinds, excepting profes- 
sional theologians, artists, manufacturers, merchants, 
shop-keepers, and artisans, stand on the basis of 
a merely rationalistic and nominal Christianity." 
Among English-speaking peojjle this drift has ap- 
peared perhaps a little more tardily than among 
Germans and French, but it is now appearing in every 
quarter with unmistakable distinctness. In some di- 
rections it has advanced to the extremest lengths of 
out-and-out atheism, materialism, secularism, posi- 
tive and even bitter anti-religion. In others, again, 
it does not go to the length of taking distinct athe- 
istic, materialistic, or positively anti-religious grounds, 
but contents itself with silently sapping the founda- 
tions of the churches, if not of religion, in the name 



DRIFT OF THE AGE AWAY FROM RELIGION. 35 

of philosophy and science. While in still other di- 
rections it manifests itself simply in letting religion 
alone — having nothing to do with it in one way or 
another. 

In pushing the cause of positive, out-and-out anti- 
religion there is perhaps greatest vigor just now in 
Great Britain. The so-called " Secularist v movement 
there, which has for its best known leaders Charles 
Bradlaugh and George Jacob Holyoake, is manifest- 
ing very great energy, and developing, it must be con- 
fessed, very great strength. A few weeks ago Mr. 
Moncure D. Conway, of London, wrote an interesting 
and really a very startling letter to The Cincinnati 
Commercial, delineating to some extent the work of 
the British National Secular Society, and giving an 
account of a secularist meeting which he had just 
attended in a town in Yorkshire, conducted by one 
of the most noted and able of the secularist lecturers, 
Mrs. Annie Besant, I cannot better describe the pow- 
erful anti-religious movement going on in England 
than by quoting from this letter at some length. 
Says Mr. Conway: " The National Secular Society 
is publishing in series ' The Free-thinkers' Text- 
Book.' Part I. has already appeared. It is in three 
numbers, all Avritten by Mr. Bradlaugh. The first is 
entitled c Man : Whence and How ? or, Revealed 
and Real Science in Conflict.' The second is i Re- 
ligion : What and Why ? or, God = X.' And the 
third a continuation of the latter. These pamphlets 
(sixx>ence each) are carefully prepared and fortified 
by citations from the greatest authorities in modern 
science. # * * The Secularists are well aware of the 
strong hold which the surviving religious usages of 
domestic life have upon the popular sentiment, and 
they do not treat them with contempt as many of the 



36 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

earlier free-thinkers did. They have now regular 
services, which correspond to those which have so 
long been in Christian usage. On the occasion of a 
lecture on 'The Four Gospels,' recently delivered 
at Barnsley, Yorkshire, by the indefatigable Mrs. 
Annie Besant, a man of much influence in that place 
presided, and began by announcing that before the 
lecture proceeded a ceremony would occur which 
would be novel to Barnsley — the naming of a child 
according to the Secular form." Mr. Conway de- 
scribes the ceremony, which seems to have made 
quite an impression upon the large assembly, and 
then goes on to say : a ido not think I can give you 
a better idea of the methods of Secularist work than 
by relating what took place after the above ceremony 
occurred. Mrs. Besant proceeded to give the first 
lecture of a Secularist kind which had ever been 
heard in Barnsley. The chairman said that an invi- 
tation to be present and discuss the positions to 
be advocated, had been sent to every preacher in 
the place. But they all seem to have declined to 
meet the lady. And I don't wonder, " adds Mr. Con- 
way, "for she is really about as formidable a de- 
bater to meet as any in England. 

" Mrs. Besant began by saying that, according to 
Paul, Christians are of all men most miserable, if 
their hopes of another life are not based upon the 
resurrection of Christ, and it was obviously, there- 
fore, of the highest importance for all to know 
whether they were sacrificing the best uses of the 
world to a myth or a reality. She challenged any 
Christian to prove the existence of the four Gospels 
before A. D. 150, otherwise than by assumptions. 
She asked why the Gospels were in Greek instead of 
in Hebrew, if written by those who worked with 






DRIFT OF THE AGE AWAY FROM RELIGION. 37 

Christ. If miracles were wrought for human benefit, 
then why should they not be wrought amid the dis- 
tresses of the world now, or to reinforce Christian? 
' evidences ? ? In the early church there were thirty- 
six Gospels, and why should four alone of them be 
deemed reliable? The English church is now revis- 
ing the translation, and the Bev. Dr. Angus says 
there are one hundred thousand errors to be corrected. 
As the Bible says that any one putting in or taking 
away a single name in it shall have his name erased 
from the book of life, it would seem there are ninety- 
nine thousand chances to one that they will all be 
eternally lost. And so went on these trenchant 
criticisms in the presence of a large number of people 
— many of them of the working classes — who had 
built their whole lives on belief in the creeds thus 
assailed by a highly cultivated and refined lady. 
When she had finished, one of them, a workingman, 
arose and said that he felt himself not qualified to 
discuss with the lecturer, not having the education. 
He complained bitterly that the ministers of the 
gospel were not present to defend his (the speaker's) 
principles, but had left it to uneducated people like 
himself. He declared his faith in Christ and in God 
with an earnestness that elicited applause. 

u Mrs. Besant arose, and with terrible effect said, 
1 That questioner is perfectly right. It is not a fair 
battle between him and any one like myself who have 
spent my whole life in studying these questions. 
Tour clergymen ought to be here. They are supposed 
to be in charge of your souls, .but when the wolf 
comes to slay the fold, the shepherds fly, because 
they are hirelings. They preach against me in their 
pulpits when I cannot answer, but will not meet me 
face to face. I am,' she added, i ready to meet any 



38 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

clergyman in Barnsley, and I ask yon to believe that 
if none of them accept my challenge it is because 
they have no real faith in their own teachings.' The 
workingman then said he sincerely hoped that some 
one could be found able to defend Christianity ; for 
his own part he believed it because he felt it. Mrs. 
Besant replied that she attacked Christianity because 
it tended to make the poor contented with their 
poverty, and she wanted them to rise out of it, and 
not postpone the happiness and education which is 
their right, to a visionary future. She said the 
greatness of England w ould never have been attained 
had the passive, ascetic, nonresistant principles of the 
Gospels, their hostility to wealth, and their anathe- 
mas of this world been really followed. 

u Since this scene occurred, the local papers of the 
region about Barnsley," continues our informant, 
" have teemed with letters and controversies. The 
event has been revolutionary. The clergy are shriek- 
ing with wrath, but they dare not face the quiet little 
lady. The effect on the laboring population has been 
so great that, a strike having begun, in which Mrs. 
Besant, believing that the workmen were wrong and 
in danger of severe suffering, addressed them with 
such influence and eloquence that the strike was 
ended, and the men — eleven hundred in number — 
went back to their collieries." 

And Mr. Conway tells us that such Secularist agi- 
tations as this in Barnsley and vicinity have of late 
been going on in hundreds of towns and cities of 
Great Britain. Indeed, he says, " I do not hesitate to 
affirm that if we were now to seek the nearest paral- 
lel to the enthusiasm and unwearied labors of the 
Wesleys and Whitefields of a past era, we should have 
to find it among the vehement assailants of Christian- 



DRIFT OF THE AGE AWAY FROM RELIGION. 39 

ity. Here, for instance, is this lady, Mrs. Besant, a 
person of delicate frame, and one whose physique is 
of the kind we usually associate with the idle luxuri- 
ance of a Belgraviaii mansion, and who has a little 
daughter of six years for whom she is known to pro- 
vide carefully ; and from notices in The National Be- 
former I find that her lecture engagements are : June 
4, Leeds ; 9, London ; 11, Birmingham ; 12, Stone- 
bridge ; 13, Mile End, near London ; 17, Armley ; 18, 
Leeds ; 19, Birkenhead ; 20, Liverpool ; 25, Bristol ; 
26 Swansea, Wales ; July 9, Sheffield ; 13, Seghill ; 
16, Jarrow; 17, N. Shields; 18, Spannymoor; 19, 
Bassington Lane; 23, Newcastle; 29, Shipley; 30 
and 31, Bradford. This means traveling all over 
England and Wales; and it must be remembered 
that each of these lectures is followed by a long dis- 
cussion, in which the lecturer has to make several 
speeches and answer all comers like a senior wran- 
gler. 

u The engagements of Mr. Bradlaugh, Mr. Watts, 
Mrs. Law, Mrs. Arabella Shore, and others, are also 
very numerous. Among them all there is not a dull 
speaker. It is impossible," concludes Mr. Conway, 
u for any sane mind to doubt that this movement is 
growing most rapidly, and that it is fraught with 
consequences, both moral and political, of a kind 
most momentous." 

These are some of the things that Mr. Conway 
says about this great Secularist or anti-religious 
movement in England; and perhaps there is no 
man in England, outside the Secularist ranks, who 
has studied the movement more carefully or w T ho is 
better qualified to speak concerning it than he. 

Mr. Bradlaugh, who is probably best known in 
this country of any of its leaders, some of you very 



40 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

likely beard, when lie was here, so that you your- 
selves can testify with what power he lays hold upon 
his audiences wherever he goes. He and his fellow 
Secularist, Mr. Holyoake, have been declared the two 
most influential men in England. And their influence 
comes very largely from the tremendously vigorous 
and telling war which for many years they have been 
carrying on against all forms of organized religion, 
by tongue and pen, by personal intercourse, lectures, 
pamphlets, newspapers edited by themselves, articles 
without number contributed to other periodicals, 
books, and every other means within their power. 
The picture given by Mr. Conway of the effect pro- 
duced by Mrs. Besant in her lectures, I suppose 
would fall short of a correct representation of the 
effect produced by Bradlaugk in some of his. Ac. 
cording to all accounts, he and his fellow Secularists 
are really stirring up in England such a religious 
earthquake as has not been known since the birth of 
Methodism ; and an earthquake which goes to the 
extremest lengths, and levels everything before it 
which wears the name of religion. It is not simply 
a war upon the established church, or upon ortho- 
doxy, or upon all churches. It is a war upon most 
of the distinctively religious ideas of Christianity, 
including the ideas of the immortality of the soul 
and the existence of God. It is a movement which 
has for its object the rigid closing down and in of 
man's horizon, to the boundaries of this world ; shut- 
ting out entirely everything above and beyond the 
present life, and annihilating spirit. It is clear, 
bold, uncompromising atheism and materialism. 

Such then is the most extreme and startling form 
which the drift away from churches and religion as- 
sumes in England. But it is by no means the only 



DRIFT OF THE AGE AWAY FROM RELIGION. 41 

form. All witnesses agree in the testimony that 
there is everywhere among all classes, a steadily 
growing feeling of doubt and skepticism which does 
not come to the surface ; or which, at least, does not 
show itself in as yet any open hostilities. Doubts 
and questionings are rising in the soberest minds. 
Persons who have never been suspected of having 
misgivings about the old faiths, are suddenly found 
out by those who look underneath the surface to be 
skeptical concerning every part of them. It is dis- 
covered that large numbers of men who support the 
churches, only do so because it would be thought 
strange if they did not, or because their wives are 
attached to them. 

Among scientists and literary persons a great and 
growing number, either have openly taken up weap- 
ons of attack against religion, or else are anything 
but friendly to it (at least in the forms in which it 
usually manifests itself). These include such names 
as the late John Stuart Mill, Harriet Martineau, 
George Grote, Thomas Henry Buckle, and the now 
living Herbert Spencer, and Tyndall and Huxley, 
and Matthew Arnold, and Buskin and Carlyle, 
and George Henry Lewes and George Eliot, and 
hosts of others who are the very leading minds 
of England to-day. The old and commonly received 
evidences of Christianity they utterly discard. One 
thing is certain, that what is generally understood 
in the world by Christianity, and even by religion, 
they can never be made to accept. They have cast 
it behind them with the superstitions of a darker 
time. And with some of them it is not certain that 
any religion can be presented to them that they wall 
accept. So thoroughly disgusted have they become 
with the crudenesses and bigotries and unreason- 



42 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

ablenesses of what lias so long worn the name of re- 
ligion, that in not a few cases it is not sure that any- 
thing that continues to call itself by the old words 
can Avin back their confidence. With all this class 
of persons the tide sets away from the old landmarks. 
Where will it stop ? 

Coming from England to our own country, what 
do we find ? Much the same condition of things. 
It is true that we do not find a powerful, organized 
movement distinctly atheistic and materialistic, like 
that in Great Britain under the lead of Bradlaugh, 
Holyoake, and their confreres. But while we do not 
find in this country precisely that, we do find a 
tremendous drift of popular thought in that gen- 
eral direction. Bradlaugh, when he was here, found 
an army of admirers, not only of himself personally, 
but of his religious (or anti-religious) ideas and 
work. Such lecturers as Mr. B. F. Underwood get 
large hearings, at least all over the Northern States. 
There is a large circulation through the country of 
such tracts as those of Bradlaugh and Underwood, 
and such books as those of Winwood Beade, Paine, 
Ingersoll, Buechner, and Feuerbach. 

The materialistic philosophy is gaining a strong 
hold upon the thought of the people in this country, 
as well as on the other side of the sea. A physician, 
who has quite a wide acquaintance among medical 
men, told me a little while ago, that of the hundreds 
of members of his profession whom he knew, there 
were very few indeed who did not incline strongly 
toward that ' philosophy. Among our eminent sci- 
entists and literary men there is a great leaning 
to the same. Such men as Prof. Youmans and 
the writers generally of The Popular Science Month- 
ly, and Dr. Draper, the author of that work, con- 



DRIFT OF THE AGE AWAY FROM RELIGION. 43 

fessedly one of the greatest that America has pro- 
duced, " The Intellectual Development of Europe/ 7 
are exerting an influence in this country which is 
very great ; and if it be not positively anti -religious, 
it is at least away from what the world has been ac- 
customed to call religion. An eminent scientist 
has recently said — "Not one in fifty of the scientists 
of any note in the United States continues to believe 
in the orthodox theology ; and most of them, at least 
among themselves treat it with utter contempt." 

Coming to the lighter literature of the country, of 
the various different kinds, we find a large propor- 
tion of it honeycombed to a greater or less extent 
with skepticism ; and not skepticism either about 
things that lie merely on the surface of religion, but 
often, as is only too plain, about things which go 
down to the very roots of religion, — skepticism 
about the whole religious idea, — a sort of hidden 
suspicion, not simply that religion is imperfect and 
corrupt and therefore needing purification and car- 
rying forward to better developments, but a sus- 
picion actually that the whole thing is at bottom 
either a fraud or a joke, and is to be either indig- 
nantly put under foot, or else laughed at. 

Nor is this drift away from religious moorings con- 
fined at all to the especially literary or reading 
classes. Among those classes of society that are 
generally designated as the laboring classes, not 
simply of the continent of Europe and Great Britain, 
but also of our own country (particulary perhaps in 
our large cities and manufacturing towns), there is a 
widespread feeling, not simply of indifference, but 
of positive hostility toward churches and everything 
pertaining to churches 5 a feeling that somehow 
there is some sort of connection between religion, 



44 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

with its wealth and display and costly temples of 
worship, and the poverty and hard lot which these 
working people have to suffer. No one, who has 
mingled much with the working classes, and espe- 
cially who has watched their strikes and labor- 
league movements, and attended their public meet- 
ings of one kind and another, held for the purpose 
of protesting against their hardships, and agitating 
reforms which shall better thpir condition, can have 
failed to observe the feeling. I need not say that the 
most conspicuous manifestation of this feeling ap- 
pears in connection with the Internationalist Work- 
ingmen's Association which has its branches all 
over Europe and in many x>arts of this country. 
But to the close observer the same feeling manifests 
itself in many other ways and directions also. This 
feeling it is that accounts to no slight extent for the 
fact that so small a part of the laboring population 
of any part of the country attend church, or can be 
got to attend church. 

But not to pursue this line of thought further, it 
cannot but be clear to every thoughtful and intelli- 
gent mind that there is all over Christendom a power- 
ful popular drift away from religion 5 a drift which 
takes diverse shapes — as atheism, ranging all the way 
from the mildest form which only doubts the exist- 
ence of God, to atheism of the more rigid and ex- 
treme form which denies such existence ; material- 
ism, ranging all the way from that kind which is only 
by implication destructive of the ideas of Godvand 
immortality, to that form which takes its stand firmly 
upon the ground that spiritual existence is a delusion ; 
secularism, from that which is only passive, and con- 
tents itself with letting religion alone, and giving its 
attention to other things, to a secularism which is 



DRIFT OF THE AGE AWAY FROM RELIGION. 45 

organized, like that in England, into a disciplined 
and terrible army, moving with relentless purpose, 
not simply upon the churches, but upon everything 
calling itself Christian, and everything wearing the 
form of religion, ^or is it any more clear that such a 
widespread drift exists, than it is that that drift 
is fast increasing in breadth and strength, and in- 
creasing, too, among positively every order of society, 
from the poorest to the most wealthy, from minds 
the crudest .and most uncultivated to minds the 
very keenest and strongest and most thoroughly dis- 
ciplined that the age affords. 

Such, then, being the condition of things every- 
where we look, we cannot avoid instinctively turn- 
ing our eyes to the future, and beginning to ask 
with anxious earnestness the questions, " What is 
the issue and end of all this to be ? Are we to expect 
that the tide is going on? And, if so, where will it 
land us ? Or, if it is not to go on, what power is to 
check it?" And I confess, feeling as I do that the 
religious interests of society are in a very true and 
real sense its highest interests, I cannot, for one, 
but regard these questions as of the profoundest im- 
portance — questions which we can none of us be ex- 
cused from facing squarely. To do this we must 
evidently look first of all for causes. We can be in no 
condition to judge of the real depth and strength, 
and therefore of the probable permanence and ex- 
tent of the drift which we are deploring until we 
have paid some attention to finding out the origin 
and real underlying meaning. Very well then, what 
are its causes ? and whence does it spring ? Can we 
discover ? 

Some will answer that it is simply a work of the 
devil ; the devil is forever stirring up his emissaries 



46 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

on earth to work against God and Christ and religion, 
and this drift of the time away from religion, is 
merely, so to speak, a great onslaught which he is con- 
ducting against the forces of goodness in the world. 

To say the least, this is a very easy way of 
disposing of the matter. Indeed, nothing could 
possibly be more easy than this way of disposing of 
all similar difficulties. Whenever we find any evil 
or supposed evil arising in society, it is a good deal 
shorter cut for us simply to stamp it at once as a 
thing of the devil and go blindly to fighting it, than 
it is for us to examine carefully and dispassionately 
about it, to find out just what it means and what it 
does not mean, and so be able to deal with it in a 
rational and really effective way. But I shall not 
be going too far when I take it for granted that none 
who have been to the trouble of coming in here to- 
day will be satisfied with any such procedure of 
heaping things on the devil's shoulders to save us 
the trouble of thinking. 

Other persons will answer this question as to the 
cause of the tremendous popular drift away from re- 
ligion, by declaring that it is simply a manifestation 
of the inherent depravity of human nature. Men 
are by nature at enmity against God and everything 
that is good, and this is only a vast outcropping of 
that enmity. Unconverted men hate the Bible, hate 
Jesus, hate religion, hate the churches, hate every- 
thing that does not fall in with their own evil pur- 
poses and desires, and this is the secret of their 
atheism, their materialism, their secularistic move- 
ments, their driftings away from religious moorings, 
their oppositions to churches, and all this kind of 
thing of which I speak. 

Well, this too, as well as the other, is a very easy 



DRIFT OF THE AGE AWAY FROM RELIGION. 47 

explanation, if it only were true. It has the advan- 
tage, too, as the other has, of being a very ortho- 
dox explanation. Indeed this, with the other, are 
ike explanations every where given by the orthodox 
preachers, teachers, and writers. Those of you who 
took the pains to read the reports of the meeting of 
the great International Evangelical Alliance held 
in New York three or four years ago, made up of 
representatives from almost all nations and denomi- 
nations of orthodox Protestant Christendom, will re- 
member that this vast popular drift of the age away 
from the religion, of which I speak, was brought to 
the attention of that body, and discussed at great 
length, and by the very ablest men of that meeting ; 
and in nearly or quite every case it was treated as 
the work of the devil or of men wilfully and know- 
ingly fighting against God. 

And yet what are the real facts of the case as we 
discover them from looking at the men themselves ? 
It only requires a very slight examination to see that 
instead of the men and women who are most active 
in promoting this drift, being bad men and women 
and haters of truth, and opposers of good causes, they 
are many of them persons of the purest lives and most 
exalted characters — persons who are noted for their 
earnest and even heroic devotion to everything that 
seems to them right and true. The great secularist 
leaders in England are, in the main, men and women 
of the most irreproachable integrity and virtue. 
Nor is it different with the large class of persons in 
this country who are taking their places outside the 
churches, and outside of everything which wears 
the forms of religion. 

No, it will not do for us to stand back Pharisaic- 
ally, fold our arms and declare the explanation of 



48 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

this great anti-religious movement to be the depravity 
and willful wickedness of those who have part in it; 
for many of the men and women who have part in 
it, even those who go the very furthest — the atheists 
and the materialists — are in cases not a few, morally 
and intellectually the peers of any of us, or of any 
religious men that can be found. There must be an- 
other explanation, and one that will bear examina- 
tion a great deal better than that. 

The true explanation, as it seems to me, is not 
hard to find, when once we begin our search in ear- 
nest and with minds unbiased. What is it ? I have 
already hinted at what I conceive it to be. I can- 
not but believe that this tremendous drift of thought 
and feeling away from religion which our age is 
witnessing, is a vast and mighty recoil, reaction, re- 
bound of a bow that lias been too much bent, swing- 
ing of a pendulum far out in a certain direction as a 
result of having previously been pushed far out in 
the opposite direction. What do I mean"? I mean 
what I have already intimated that, for fifteen hun- 
dred years religion has been so full of darkness 
and superstition and unreason, and during all our 
modern age of progress and increasing light it has so 
habitually tabooed inquiry, and fought science, and 
refused to let in the coming daylight of the new age, 
and struggled to keep the growing minds of men 
confined in the fetters of old outgrown creeds, that, 
little by little the stronger intellects and freer spirits 
and more independent wills of Christendom have be- 
come disturbed, dissatisfied, alienated, and. in too 
many cases at last bitterly hostile ; and the cry has 
risen, first in a whisper, then in an undertone, and 
now in a voice loud enough for the deafest to hear, 
" That which persistently allies itself with what is 



DRIFT OF THE AGE AWAY FROM RELIGION. 49 

false, and unprogressive, and outworn, and which 
will not come forward to the light and to reason, 
away with it ! If that be religion, then to the moles 
and the bats with your religion ! We want and will 
have none of it. ?? Exactly that, friends, unless I am 
entirely mistaken in my reading of the times, is what 
this great drift — swing — rebound — whatever you 
choose to call it, of the age away from religion means. 
It means on a large scale what on a small scale I 
have myself experienced, and what very likely some 
of you have experienced. Tou will pardon the refer- 
ence to myself when I say, what some of you know, 
that I was born and reared in an orthodox family, 
and educated under orthodox influences, and for the 
orthodox ministry. And I can never make any one 
know who has not himself been through the experi- 
ence how terrible is the shock, and the natural re- 
action in the direction of utter skepticism, which 
comes when at last, after long fighting against doubts, 
and hoping against hope, the suspicion finally grows 
into inescapable conviction that the old doctrines 
are foundationless and must be abandoned. I shall 
never forget the weeks at a time in my own expe- 
rience when the heavens were black over my head, 
and it seemed to me there was nothing left for me 
but to turn my back upon everything wearing the 
name of religion, and to go forth refusing to believe 
anything concerning spiritual things. And although 
at last, after years of earnest but lonely and often 
heartsore seeking, I found a faith that filled and more 
than filled the place of the old, for it satisfied my 
reason as well as my heart and conscience, yet from 
that time to this I have felt the deepest sympathy 
with the thousands and millions of my fellow-beings 
who, finding themselves where I was, and not hav- 
3 



50 ORTHODOXY AND EEVIVALISM. 

ing the help and encouragement that I had to set 
out in search of a rational faith, took the seemingly 
inevitable step over into atheism, or religious reckless- 
ness, or stolid unbelief and indifferentism regarding 
religious things. And to-day, when I think of such 
men as Bradlaugh and Col. Ingersoll, the peers of 
any of us, I suppose, in honesty, and probably more 
than our peers in bravery, it is with no feeling of an- 
ger and little of condemnation, but mainly a feeling 
of sorrow. I think these men are mistaken ; I think 
they have taken a wrong road, that will lead them 
and their followers to great harm; but I appreciate 
their motives, and believe them to have taken the 
road they have, not because they are devils, or men 
who hate the truth and love a lie, but because they 
believe the road is the right road. And in my can- 
did judgment the time is coming when it will be 
seen that the atheism, and all the forms of anti- 
Christianity and anti-religion with which, as we have 
seen, Christendom is so full, are actually less to be 
laid at the door of the men who hold and teach 
them, than they are to be laid at the door of mod- 
ern orthodoxy. 

Tell me of what was the reign of terror in France^ 
in the latter part of the last century, the real child % 
The real mother of that reign of terror and of all 
the horrors of the never-to-be-forgotten French revo- 
lution, was the tyrannies political, but especially 
mental and spiritual, that had been sitting like an 
incubus upon France for centuries. These tyrannies 
the people of France had borne at the hands of the 
monarchy and of Eome until they could bear them 
no longer, when, with a convulsive, frantic, almost 
demoniac, common impulse, the oppressed millions 
rose, and in their frenzy rushed, as was natural, to 



DRIFT OF THE AGE AWAY FROM RELIGION. 51 

the opposite extreme of utter license and lawless- 
ness. It was St. Bartholomew^ massacre that be- 
got Bobespierre; it w r as the inquisition that begot 
Dan ton 5 it was Louis XIV. that murdered Louis 
XVI. Tyranny political, but particularly ecclesias- 
tical, had bent the bow until there must be a recoil, 
and a recoil that should be terrible. It had pushed 
the pendulum back, and back, until when the force 
applied could no longer keep it back, what wonder 
that it swung away to the horrible extreme which 
history records ? And this is the law of human 
nature ever. Extreme begets opposite extreme. 
Tyranny begets anarchy. Bigotry begets infidelity. 
What a confession is that of Prof. Ohrislieb, when, 
speaking of the great rationalistic drift that has been 
so long going on in Germany, he says : u It must be 
confessed that the church theology of the last cen- 
tury deserves the chief blame for the general apos- 
tasy which then began from the ancient faith ! ?? 
Bev. Charles Brigham, who has for some years been 
teacher of a Bible-class of from two hundred and 
fifty to three hundred students, at Michigan Univer- 
sity, told me a few weeks ago that of the great 
numbers of infidels and skeptics, and young men 
who had utterly repudiated religion, whom he had 
been able to gather into his class, a very large 
majority were the sons of orthodox parents. Coming 
up to young manhood, and going out from home 
to think for themselves, these young men had 
found the old theology so irrational and mediaeval 
and out of accord with the enlightened and progres- 
sive spirit of the times, that in their disgust and 
even anger they had cut loose from it all, and having 
been taught always to identify that theology with 
religion, they had cut loose at the same time from 



52 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

religion also — the pendulum sweeping away to the 
opposite extreme of its arc. And Mr. Brighain's 
experience is only the experience of every person 
who is in a position to observe what is going on to- 
day among the young men of this country, and, in- 
deed, so nearly as we can learn, of all Christian coun- 
tries. Within the past fifteen years I have myself 
been mingling constantly with young men. Hun- 
dreds and thousands have I been thrown into asso- 
ciation and more or less intimate acquaintance with, 
north, south, east, and west ; in city, in country, in 
academy, in college, in theological school, in busi- 
ness, in the army, in travel, in five years of pastoral 
work, in general society ; and nothing has been more 
noticeable to me everywhere than just this thing of 
which I speak — the tendency amongst those who 
have been brought up to believe the old theology, as 
soon as they get out into the broad world, and 
begin to read and think for themselves, to fly off 
into utter unbelief, and to turn the cold shoulder 
altogether upon religion ; this tendency, moreover, 
being almost invariably the strongest with those 
young men whose early teachings have been the 
most rigidly and thoroughly orthodox, and whose 
parents have guarded them most carefully against 
what they call the rationalism of liberal Christianity, 
Oh, I tell you, orthodoxy little realizes what it is 
doing. It little realizes what it is responsible for. 
I do not believe I am going too far when I affirm 
that, in my deliberate judgment, the orthodox 
theology (and by the orthodox theology, I mean of 
course, the theology which underlies all orthodox 
Protestantism and Eoman Catholicism, for the theo- 
logy of both is at bottom essentially one), I say I 
do not believe I am going too far when I declare that, 



DRIFT OF THE AGE AWAY FEOM RELIGION. 53 

in my deliberate judgment, the orthodox theology 
of Christendom is the most prolific mother in Chris- 
tendom, to-day, of skepticism, unbelief, anti-religion, 
atheism. 

1 know it does not seem gracious to say this. It 
never seems gracious to say words which antagonize 
the deep-rooted beliefs of large bodies of men, no 
matter how false and harmful those beliefs may be. 
But words require sometimes to be said in this world 
that are not gracious, and which one would gladly 
be excused from saying. And for one, I believe that 
these words that I am saying to-day, and words like 
them, are such as must be spoken, and spoken again 
and again, and in every place where we can get men 
to listen to them, until by degrees they shall come 
to be heeded, and Christendom shall at last give 
up a theology, which, whatever useful place it may 
have filled in past and darker ages, has clearly out- 
lived its proper span of life, and is now only a 
deadly incubus upon religion. 

This brings me to my last thought. Is there any- 
thing to take the place of the old theology, which 
will not have the effect to make men skeptics and in- 
fidels, but instead which will tend to prevent men 
from becoming skeptics and infidels ? Is there any 
theology which we can give men, which is so rational, 
so progressive, so in harmony with nature and human 
nature, so full of light, so truly the child of the best 
inspirations, not simply of the past, but more impor- 
tant still, of the present, that, instead of being a pro- 
moter and accelerator of the fearful drift away from 
religion which we have seen going on everywhere, it 
shall lay its hand upon the drift to arrest it ? 

Friends, I, for one, believe there is just such a the- 
ology in the providence of God, urging itself upon the 



54 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

attention of the American people, and of Christendom, 
to-day. Nor has it come a day too soon. 

What is that theology % I need not say it is the the- 
ology of liberal Christianity. It is that theology which, 
while it formulates no creed (believing that every 
man must, according to his own conscience and the 
light that he possesses, make his own creed before 
God), has yet a great central principle, which gives it 
unity with diversity, perpetual progress with adhesion 
to all that is truest in the past, and which makes it 
impossible that it should not be in harmony with 
the best scholarship, thought, feeling, conscience, of 
this and every succeeding age — that central principle 
being that religion is a natural thing, revealed to 
men as truth is revealed to men by degrees, neces- 
sarily crude and imperfect among the crude and 
ignorant, but growing with men's growth, strengthen- 
ing with their strength, advancing toward perfection 
with their advance toward perfection, having its 
foundation in the reason and conscience and moral 
conciousness of men, and, therefore, now and forever 
reasonable, and now and forever satisfying men's 
deepest wants, alike of thinking head and feeling heart. 

These men that are drifting off into skepticism and 
atheism do not thus drift because they chose so to 
do, but because they see no alternative. They do not 
give up the religious doctrines in which they have 
been reared because they want to give them up, but 
because they have got to the point where those doc- 
trines seem so unreasonable that they can't believe 
them any longer. There is no reason for any man 
to suppose that Bradlaugh and Ingersoll would not 
gladly believe in a God if they could. They are not 
atheists because they deliberately set out to be, but 
because their ideas of truth compel them to be. This 



DEIFT OF THE AGE AWAY FROM RELIGION. 55 

then, being the condition of things, we cannot fail to 
see what is wanted to bring about a remedy to the 
evil which we deplore. That thing wanted is simply 
a religion which commends itself to men's reason, — 
simply a religion which arrays itself in light, invites 
scrutiny, stands the tests of investigation. To such a 
religion men are not naturally hostile. From such a 
religion, once set plainly before the people, there can 
be no great popular drift. As men come to under- 
stand religion to be that, the popular drift would 
be toward it, not away from it. "What, therefore, is 
wanted to save us and all Christendom from the tide 
of unbelief which arises so alarmingly on every side, 
and is already swallowing up so many of all classes 
of society, but especially of our young men, our 
scientists, our literary men, and the more indepen- 
dent of our thinkers, is a religion that these men can 
accept. 

Does any one say that orthodoxy is such a religion? 
It is orthodoxy, as I have already abundantly shown, 
that the drift is from; that has done the mischief; 
that has caused the evil which we would cure. Iso 
form of orthodoxy, therefore, which is anything less 
than orthodoxy with orthodoxy utterly left out, can 
ever accomplish the desired purpose. The religion 
which can save us must be a radically different thing 
from orthodoxy — rising above and leaving behind al- 
most every doctrine which orthodox creeds and the- 
ologies lay down as leading and fundamental. It 
must be a religion which has in it no dogmas of infal- 
libilities of pope, or church, or Bible ; no Adam's 
fall; no blood atonements; no Jesus worship, or 
Virgin Mary worship, or worship of any other being 
than the God whom Jesus himself worshiped; no 
eternal hell ; no arbitrary heaven; no election of some 



56 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

men to be saved and. of others to be damned ; no 
choosing out of a single nation to receive God's reve- 
lation from heaven while all the rest of the nations 
of the world are left in midnight darkness, under a 
curse which they neither know the existence of nor 
how to escape ; no compound God — three persons in 
one God — God's person number two praying to God's 
person number one, and God's j)erson number one 
saving sinners, because God's person number two 
has offered himself as a ransom to God's person 
number one; no inconsistent God who commands us 
to love our enemies, and at the same time hates his ; 
no immoral God, who tells us that murder is a great 
sin, and yet himself commands his servants Joshua 
and Saul to murder thousands of innocent and un- 
offending women and children ; no God who creates 
a race nine-tenths of whom he knows beforehand 
will be eternally lost ; no such kind of conversion as 
can fit murderers for heaven in the twinkling of an eye, 
by their simply " accepting Christ," while millions of 
the best men and women in the world are consigned, 
hopelessly, to endless perdition because they did not 
in this life pass through a theological wicket-gate. 
I say, the new religion which is to save us, must be 
a religion which casts behind it every one of these 
irrational and degrading dogmas, and every dogma 
of a kind which allies itself with these ; and goes 
forward to views and teachings of God, and the 
Bible, and Jesus, and human nature, and human 
destiny, incomparably higher and more worthy of 
itself and of the age. In a word, it must be a re- 
ligion which looks up where orthodoxy has always 
looked down, out where orthodoxy has always looked 
in, forward where orthodoxy has always looked back- 
ward ; a religion which is full of hope, and love, 



DRIFT OF THE AGE AWAY FROM RELIGION. 57 

and light, and faith in man, and ennobling represen- 
tations of God, where orthodoxy has always been 
full of despair, wrath, darkness, injustice, distrust 
of human nature, and degrading representations of 
God. 

And now I submit the question to every man, to 
be answered by himself, as his own reason dictates. 
Where is such a religion to be found if not in liberal 
Christianity ? Can any one answer me where ? Every 
man must think for himself. No man can judge for 
another in these things. All I can say is, that I for 
one am convinced that there is, and in the nature of 
things can be, no such preventive of skepticism, un- 
belief, atheism, antagonism to religion in the world 
as this reverent, rational, catholic, progressive faith 
of ours. And if the drift which sets so strongly in 
our day away from religion, and which we have been 
considering this afternoon, is ever to be checked, as 
sooner or later it certainly will be checked, the agency 
through which it must come, as it seems to me at 
least, must be, perhaps not in name but in thing, 
Liberal Christianity. 

Chicago, July, 1876. 

3* 



A RATIONAL FAITH. 



"Be ready always to give an answer to every man that 
asketli you a reason of the hope that is in you." — 1 Peter iii. 15. 

Unitarians have no creed. We do have, how- 
ever, a central principle, and all our distinctive be- 
liefs spring immediately from this principle. What 
is this principle % Probably ninety-nine persons in 
every hundred will declare at once that it is our 
notion of the Unity of God as opposed to the Trinity. 
By no means. That is not the fontal idea from which 
the stream of our Unitarianism has flowed. It is 
true that that has given us our name, u Unitarians." 
But there is something a good deal deeper than that, 
in which our existence as a body or movement roots 
itself. That deepest, central, fontal thing with us is 
our belief in the eternal and essential harmony between 
religion and reason, or, perhaps better, in the necessity 
of always interpreting religion in the light of reason, 
or, possibly best of all, in the application of the scien- 
tific method to religion. This fixed and ineradicable 
belief of ours is the key, and the only key that un- 
locks Unitarianism. 

It is true that we believe, as a body, in the unity 
as opposed to the trinity of God. But we believe 
this because our principle of interpreting religion 
in the light of reason, or of applying the scientific 
method to religion, compels us thus to believe. 



A KATIONAL FAITH. 59 

The Bible, studied in the light of this principle, 
we do not find to teach any trinity, but always and 
everywhere, one God, and only one. 

Turning from this great book which comes down 
to us from the Jews, and which we call The Bible, 
to that other great bible of God, the Book of Nature, 
which science is so fast reading, we find there no 
trace of more than one God. Everywhere in nature 
is unity, correlation, harmony of design and of action, 
which tells of one supreme, undivided Wisdom and 
Power which is over all, under all, through all. 
And there is no trace anywhere of a second or a third 
Being. 

When we go into heathen mythologies, and to the 
speculations and crude notions of men who lived in 
the old, dark, unscientific ages, then we find at once 
traces of a plurality of gods — two, three, a dozen, 
any number. In Persia we find two gods ; in Egypt 
and India we find trinities ; in Greece, of the great 
gods of Olympus, we find twelve ; in Scandinavia we 
find also twelve principal gods ; while among some 
peoples of the earth we find thousands and millions. 
But these mythologies do not stand at all the appli- 
cation of the scientific methods of investigation to 
them. Examined with the care and thoroughness 
and impartiality with which science investigates all 
things, these mythologies melt into thin air ; and all 
trace of the million gods, or the dozen gods, or the 
trinity of gods, or the duality of gods, passes away, 
and there is left only the one God, whom the Bible 
teaches, whom nature in all her wonderful unities 
proclaims, whom Jesus worshiped. 

Here, then, you see why it is that we believe in 
one God, and only one ; and find ourselves compelled 
to reject all such mythological notions as pluralities 



60 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

of gods, whether the pluralities take the form of a 
trinity or any other number. We must believe as 
we do, or else give up our fundamental principle — 
our distinguishing principle — viz., that religion is a 
thing of light, and not of darkness ; a thing to be 
investigated, judged of, interpreted in the light of 
reason. 

Again, another doctrine held by an increasingly 
large proportion of Unitarians is the doctrine that 
Jesus was not God, nor a being half God and half 
man ; but that He was a man simply — a great, 
providential man, raised up to do a work for the 
world in religion, some such as Homer did for the 
world in poetry, or Plato in philosophy, or Bacon in 
science. A continental man, a Mont Blanc among 
men, but a man still. Why do we believe this ? Is 
this a doctrine which Unitarianism in the beginning 
set out from as a postulate, saying, " I will make 
this one of my corner-stones, which nothing is to be 
allowed to move ? " Not at all. Nothing of this 
kind was done. On the contrary, this doctrine, like 
the one mentioned before, of the unity of God, re- 
sulted from the principle that true religion must 
be reasonable, and that the scientific method is to 
be applied as much to religion as to anything else. 
Applying this principle, the result was reached in- 
evitably, though reluctantly. At first very many 
Unitarians stopped at the halfway house, and said 
that Jesus, though not God, was yet superhuman — 
an angelic or super-angelic being. Indeed, many 
hold that doctrine concerning him still. But to me 
at least it seems illogical ; our principle dooms it to 
pass away. All that class of persons in the world who 
would as soon believe an irrational religion as a ra- 
tional, and who say that religion is something to 



A RATIONAL FAITH. 61 

which you must apply no scientific methods of investi- 
gation ? will almost certainly continue to hold that 
Jesus Christ was God ; but those who cannot con- 
sent to the divorce of religion from reason, and who 
hold that true religion only shows itself more clearly 
true the more thoroughly it is examined, I do not 
think can stop short of the position which I have 
stated to be the legitimate Unitarian position, that 
Jesus was a man— a great providential man, who 
came in God's time to lead a large part of the race 
forward and upward into a religion purer and better 
than the world had known before. 

The far x^ast of the Old World, as we are learning 
from the researches of scholars in philosophy and 
ancient history, and the literatures and religions of 
the ancient peoples of Europe and Asia, is full of 
accounts of incarnations, miraculous conceptions, 
gods dwelling on earth, men descended from the 
gods, beings half men and half gods, and such like 
things. But there is no one of them all that for a 
moment stands the touchstone of careful, scientific 
investigation. They are found to be mere myths 
and fancies of a credulous, unscientific age. ISTo 
more do the theological notions of Christendom that 
Jesus was miraculously conceived, descended from 
God through no human father, and himself a com- 
bination of the infinite God and a finite man, stand 
the test of sound criticism. There are very few 
passages indeed, in the New Testament which, under 
any sound interpretation, can be said to give the 
least support to any such notion concerning Jesus. 
And the few there are can certainly much more easi- 
ly be supposed to be erroneous, than we can suppose 
things to have occurred so abnormal, so utterly con- 
trary to all human experience. It certainly is not 



62 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

scientific or reasonable to dismiss at once as not even 
worthy of careful investigation, the stories of Hindoo 
incarnations, and of Grecian personages half gods 
and half men, and at the same time, on the slight 
evidence that we have (which so much of the best 
scholarship and criticism of the age declares to be 
no evidence at all), go on affirming that there was a 
veritable incarnation of the Great Jehovah among 
the Jews of Palestine, and that Jesus was God and 
man. 

But I will not dwell longer upon this point. My 
simple thought is, that the idea which we Unitarians 
have about Jesus is not any idea which we have set 
out with, as a part of a Procrustean creed which we 
have constructed for ourselves, or anything of that 
kind. It is simply the idea which our principle, that 
religion and reason must in all things go hand in 
hand, and that the scientific method must be applied 
to religion the same as to anything else, has irre- 
sistibly led us to. In other words our Jesus, as we 
claim, is the Jesus of verified history, the Jesus of 
investigation, the Jesus of reason, the loving, wise, 
devout, heroic, grands-inspired man Jesus, that re- 
mains after the clouds which superstition, and myth, 
and theological speculation have wrapped about him, 
have been blown away — and he himself, in his real 
self, appears. 

Another doctrine which Unitarians hold in com- 
mon, is the doctrine of the dignity of human nature — 
the doctrine that man is not by nature corrupt, de- 
praved, incapable of doing anything pleasing to 
heaven — but that he has in him naturally a great 
deal of good. Why do we thus hold ? Because the 
facts compel us to. We look abroad in our own land, 
not only inside churches but outside, not only among 



A KATI0NAL FAITH. 63 

professing Christians, but among those who make 
no religious professions at all ; nay, we look away 
beyond our own land, even into countries where 
Christianity, as such, is unknown, and everywhere 
w^e see men and women doing kind, loving, beautiful, 
noble deeds, — -just such deeds as Jesus always com- 
mended, just such deeds as we call Christian when 
we see them done by professing Christian people. 
We Unitarians take it, therefore, that they are in es- 
sence Christian deeds, and that pure religion and 
true Christianity are something native to the heart 
of man. Hence mankind cannot be by nature — as 
the Confession of Faith of at least two of the leading 
orthodox denominations of the country affirms — 
" dead in sin, wholly defiled in all the faculties and 
parts of soul and body," "made opposite to all 
good, and wholly inclined to all evil.? To say that 
is to contradict no t only the best teachings of the Bible, 
but also the facts as they appear everywhere up and 
down the earth to every unprejudiced man's eye. 

Another doctrine that we Unitarians hold is, that 
the Bible is not one homogeneous book, with all its 
parts of equal value ; but that it is a collection of a 
great many books, written at widely different times, 
and by different men, and for different purposes, and 
of different degrees of accuracy and authenticity; 
and that in the course of ages these books have drifted 
together in their present form, nobody knows just 
how; some of the books being taken up mainly with 
Hebrew genealogies and such things as could not 
possibly be of much value outside of the Jewish people; 
others of the books containing accounts and state- 
ments which our modern science tells us cannot pos- 
sibly be correct, and which we are therefore obliged 
to cast out; while others again, like the Psalms, the 



64 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

Book of Job, Isaiah, the Gospels, and some of the 
Epistles of Paul, are full of the very grandest and 
highest religious truths and inspirations which God 
has given to the race. So that we are to go to the 
Bible as to a gold-mine — not to declare that every- 
thing we find is alike gold ; but to admit freely, as 
honest, candid investigation compels us to, that 
some of what we find is stone, and some earth, and 
some the quartz that holds the gold, while some — 
and a very large amount — is gold itself, precious 
and indestructible. This is what we, as Unitarians, 
hold about the Bible. 

And why do we hold this, instead of the prevail- 
ing " orthodox" theory of the perfect infallibility of 
every part and word of the Bible % Simply because 
there is no alternative for us. We are obliged to hold 
this, or else shut our eyes and refuse to receive the 
light which science and scholarship are bringing to us. 

Unitarians hold also a different doctrine about 
Revelation from w 7 hat is generally held among other 
denominations. We hold that God has not reveal- 
ed Himself simply once, and that in the distant 
past, but that He has been revealing Himself all 
the while since the beginning of human history, 
and is revealing Himself still — in the Bible, in other 
grand books of the ages, in human history, in all 
nature from blazing sun down to tiniest insect, in 
the mind and heart of man ; and that as the ages go 
on, and science enlarges, and men reach higher and 
higher attainments in civilization and spiritual cul- 
ture, He will reveal Himself more and more. 

Another of our doctrines as Unitarians is, that in- 
spiration is not something which can be locked up in 
a book, or confined to any age or people, but that it 
is a perpetual, ever-living thing, belonging to all 



A KATIONAL FAITH. 65 

times and all peoples; that now, to-day, and here in 
America, just as truly as two thousand or three thou- 
sand years ago, or in Palestine, the Infinite Spirit of 
Wisdom, and Love, and Peace waits to come with its 
inspiration into every devout and earnest soul. 

Another doctrine of ours is, that salvation is not 
something which can be transferred from one person 
to another, or that can be bought for us by any be- 
ing outside of ourselves. Bather it is a thing of 
character and life, which every man must work out 
for himself. Virtue is salvation, vice is perdition. 
Every man is accountable for himself, and his guilt 
cannot be transferred to another. God cannot hold 
the whole human race guilty because of what Adam 
did — it is incredible. Nor if Jesus kept the laws of 
God never so perfectly, could it avail for any but 
himself. To be saved is not to accept some bargain, 
but to obey all the laws of one's being — physical, 
mental, moral, spiritual. Nor does such obedience 
insure a salvation in a far-off heaven merely. It is 
salvation here and now. 

Another of our beliefs is, that " God is the same 
yesterday, to-day, and forever,' 7 and therefore that 
if He is kind to ail His human children now, in this 
w r orld, He Avill be not less kind to us in the next 
world. If He is the Father of us all here, He will 
be the Father of us all there, and nothing can ever 
pluck us out of His hand or His heart. 

Other doctrines we hold differing to a greater or 
less extent from those of the sects about us, but 
these that I have mentioned are the principal ones. 
These give perhaps as good an idea as it is possible 
for me to give, of what it is that we stand for as a 
body. As I have said, our central principle is, that 
the same God made our minds and commanded 



bb ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

them to think, that made our hearts, and commanded 
them to love and adore ; and that no religion can 
possibly be true that does not stand the test of in- 
vestigation, and whose divineness does not become 
all the more apparent by the pouring on it of all the 
light we can get. Science we believe to be as much 
the friend of true religion, as it is the enemy of false 
religion or superstition. Eeason we believe to be 
of God, and not of the devil, and something not 
simply that we may, but that we must, exercise with 
reference to religion, or else be swamped in super- 
stitions false as hell — calling themselves religion. 
And I have endeavored to shoAV that all our doc- 
trines about God, and Jesus, and the Bible, and 
revelation, and inspiration, and salvation, and the 
rewards and punishments of the next life, and every 
other subject of religious thought, grow directly out 
of this one great central principle of ours, — of, as 
Paul puts it, u proving all things, and holding fast 
that which is good ; ?? or, as I have stated it in this 
discourse, u applying the scientific method " to all 
things, religion included. 

So then we see that, though Unitarianism has 
no creed, and labors little for mere denominational 
aggrandizement, and did not set out in the begin- 
ning to be a sect or do the work of a sect at all, but 
rather to do a work of purification and reform which 
should reach all the sects, and draw them all alike 
away from their sectarianism toward what was larger, 
and finer, and more enduring, because more natu- 
ral than any sectarianisms can ever be, still, because 
it set out upon its reforms animated and governed 
by a central principle, it arrived very soon at an es- 
sential unity of theological views, — a unity which it 
has always kept, and must always keep, because re- 



A RATIONAL FAITH. 67 

ligion interpreted by reason, or religion submitted to 
the scientific method, leads necessarily, as we believe, 
to what are essentially these doctrines that I have 
set forth to-day. 

Do you doubt that it does thus lead ? Behold the 
proof of it right among the orthodox denominations 
themselves. Tell me, is the orthodoxy which we 
hear about us to-day the same thing as the orthodoxy 
which you and I used to hear, say even twenty 
years ago? Has there been no change? Have 
no doctrines been softened? Have none been allow- 
ed to fall into the background ? Has there been no 
theological advance made ? We all very well know 
that there has been a marked change, a marked the- 
ological advance made, within the past twenty years 5 
and this, in spite of the most determined and in- 
sistent opposing efforts of the theologians, of the 
more narrow-minded and ultra " evangelical " preach- 
ers and editors of the various orthodox sects, and 
especially of the revivalists. In what direction has 
been the advance ? It has been, every part of it, 
exactly in the direction of Unitarianisin. However 
great the advance, by so much is the orthodoxy of 
this country to-day nearer Unitarianism than it was 
twenty years ago. 

And why should it not be ? Isn't this a scientific 
age ? Isn't it an age of investigation ? Isn't it an 
age that is unchaining reason, as no age before has 
ever done ? Why, then, expect that any theological 
changes that might take place would be in any other 
direction than toward that particular theology which 
has come into existence as a rational theology — that 
particular theology which has grown out of the one 
great central idea of reason in religion ? 

And so, friends, as Unitarianism to-day looks for- 



68 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

ward into the future, do you wonder that it is filled 
with a great hope ? 

Not that our name, Unitarian, is something that 
must necessarily always last. I am disposed to 
think that it will not always last. For, really, that 
name is not adequate, — it is too narrow properly to 
designate the great movement and principles that we 
stand for. Correct so far as it goes : it does not go 
far enough ; it is not broad enough; has too much of 
a sectarian look. That is the reason why we so often 
designate ourselves by that other somewhat broader 
name, Liberal Christians. The name which I myself 
prefer, because I think it describes us better than any 
other, is the name Rational Christians. However, 
names amount to very little in this world. The 
thing is what we want. And the thing which the 
name Unitarian, or Universalist, or Liberal Christian, 
or Rational Christian, or whatever other name may 
be employed means, the thing will not pass away ; 
that, as knowledge increases, and science gets larger 
dominion, and civilization advances, and reason 
comes to be more and more the guide of men's lives, 
must become the inheritor of the future. 

Chicago, July, 1876. 






THE DESIRE FOR INFALLIBILITIES IN RELIGION. 



" Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is 
right ? " — Luke xii. 57. 

Says Archbishop Whately : " There is a strong 
tendency in human nature to save itself from the 
trouble of inquiry and the uneasiness of doubt. We 
do not like to be left for a moment in uncertainty or 
suspense ; we are impatient of the labor of exam- 
ining things for ourselves ; we are alarmed at the 
danger of mistake, and uneasy under the sense of 
persona] responsibility ; and so we are disposed be- 
forehand to accept a guide in religion, who shall 
continually claim the power of conducting us with 
unerring skill, and who shall tell us that we have 
nothing to do but follow him." 

Unquestionably there is much truth in this. In. 
the Christian church this tendency of the human 
mind has resulted in the setting up slowly through 
centuries of silent and almost unnoticed progress, of 
two infallibilities — an infallible Church (latterly with 
an infallible Pope at the head of it, as its high priest 
and oracle), and an infallible Book. 

The theory of an infallible Church seems to have 
grown into completeness first. Indeed for many cen- 
turies this was the great and the only infallibility of 
Christendom. It had no serious rival until the Ger- 
man Eeformation arose. Of this Eeformation the 



70 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

central idea was a new infallibility. Luther and his 
compeers said : " Down with an infallible church!" 
and with the rams of their religious zeal and fiery 
eloquence they mightily shook and fearfully breached 
its walls. But the final out-come of all was, not the 
destruction of the old, but a dividing of it, and a 
setting up of the new. 

To-da3 r Borne floats her banner of ecclesiastical and 
papal infallibility as defiantly as ever; while the 
great body of Protestantism, with at least equal ex- 
ternal show of boldness and confidence, marches un- 
der the banner of an infallible Bible. 

Concerning these two infallibilities it is perhaps 
hard for us to judge with perfect fairness. The 
Eomanist usually sees nothing but error, and a dan- 
gerously wicked error in the one. The Protestant (I 
mean the orthodox Protestant) as usual sees nothing 
but error, and a wicked, dangerous error in the other. 
From the standpoint of either party then, holding 
to either form of infallibility, and consequently re- 
jecting the other, it is evidently impossible to see 
clearly where the truth lies. It is only from a stand- 
point outside of either stockade and overlooking 
both, that correct views can be obtained. From such a 
standpoint I believe it will generally be seen that the 
Bomanist's infallibility has on its side at least logic, 
and, as I have already intimated, priority of birth. 

But my effort to-day will not be to draw any lines 
of comparison or contrast between the two, but to 
examine the idea that lies at the root of both — the 
abstract idea of external infallibilities of any kind. 
When we set up any standard of truth as infallible, 
what do we do? We simply decree that truth is 
just so high, so broad, so long, of such or such size 
and shape, and never shall be any higher or broader 



THE DESIRE FOR INFALLIBILITIES IN RELIGION. 71 

or larger, or assume any other form. We do the 
same thing that the Chinese do when they confine 
their girls' feet in the unyielding shoes which will 
allow no growth. We do the same thing that the 
young man of eighteen would do if he should sit 
down and write out exactly his present knowledge, 
his present understanding of things, his present 
judgments, and then deliberately determine that this 
shall be his standard for all his life ; he will never 
allow himself to entertain the thought either that 
he may possibly have been mistaken in anything, 
or that he has not reached, at this early age, the 
Ultima Tliule of human knowledge and wisdom. 

To claim that a church is infallible is to hold that 
a body of men have attained to knowledge so high 
that by no possibility can any future generation of 
men be able to see more clearly any truth, or judge 
more wisely concerning any measure, than they are 
able to do ; in a w r ord it is to hold that they have 
reached perfect, that is infinite knowledge. Reduced 
to its last analysis it amounts to this and nothing 
less than this. 

On the other hand, to claim that a book is infalli- 
ble, is to hold the same with reference to the book. 

Let us inquire what the effect of this seeking for 
and reliance upon supposed infallibilities has been. 

It has been just what one looking on and judging 
ttjpWoW would naturally conclude it must be, viz., 
to make book-worms ; mere historians instead of 
seers ; men faced backward instead of forward ; 
rakers forever among dead men's bones ; worship- 
era of a God of the dead, instead of a God of the 
living ; intense conservatives even to bigotry ; men 
intensely self-satisfied even to Phariseeism ; habitual 
rejecters of anything new, no matter how much proof 



72 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

there might be of its truth — that did not plainly 
coincide with the old fixed standards. 

These, I say, are what one judging from before- 
hand would conceive to be the natural results of 
men's setting up for themselves some standard as 
infallible, and determining that everything should 
forever be measured by that. 

And looking at the matter historically we find 
that just this has been in a striking manner the 
effect of the claim of infallible standards wherever 
that claim has been set up, whether among Christian 
or non-Christian peoples. 

First It has faced men backward ; setting them 
looking in the direction of the childhood of the race 
for wisdom ; — as singular a procedure as if middle- 
aged men and women of to-day should devote large 
portions of their time to laboriously studying the 
doings and sayings of their boyhood and girlhood, 
with the expectation of finding great stores of knowl- 
edge there ; or, as if nations that have advanced fur- 
thest on the road toward civilization should go in a 
body and sit down as pupils at the feet of those 
nations that are a great distance back on the road. 

Second. The claim of infallibility has tended ever 
to make men mere exegetes, and commentators, and 
scholastic, and historians; instead of seers, and 
discoverers, and original thinkers. Of course if all 
wisdom is wrapped up in the Vedas, then all that is 
left for anybody now to do is to study the Vedas. 
Of course if the Koran contains all, then the mine in 
which every wise man will dig will be not science, or 
philosophy, or literature, or nature, but the Koran. 
Of course if the Bible or the Church are the great 
depositories of wisdom on the earth — they and they 
alone authoritative and infallible — then the prime 



THE DESIRE FOR INFALLIBILITIES IN RELIGION. 73 

want of mankind, the want incomparably greater 
than any other, is commentators and exegetes of the 
Bible and historians of the church. 

So then we cannot wonder that so long as the 
doctrines of an infallible Church and an infallible 
Bible are held to, an enormously large proportion of 
the best intellect of Christendom, as well as of Brah- 
manistic, Buddhistic and Mohammedan countries, 
should in every age be turned in the channel of mere 
exigesis and comment on the past — raking among 
ashes, instead of rising and going forth to plant and 
nourish new life ! 

Third. The idea of infallible standards has tended 
to make men bigots and persecutors. Of course if 
certain men were infallibly right, then those opposed 
to them, or not walking with them, must necessarily 
be wrong. If they had the truth, and the whole truth, 
and the unchangeable truth, then all the world out- 
side must be heretics and heathen. If they had 
the seal of God on their doctrines, and their institu- 
tions, and their procedures, of course the seal of 
Satan was on everything contravening. Hence the 
very natural conclusion that the right thing to do 
was to proselyte, and push conquests, and crush 
down opposers, even by star chambers and inquisi- 
tions. As long as the Infallible Book gave exam- 
ples of the chosen people of other times wiping out 
God's enemies by the hundred thousand, by fire and 
sword, why should not their spiritual descendants 
and pupils — the chosen people of to-day — also wipe 
out God's enemies in the same way? 

Or, so long as the Church was infallible, and could 
do no wrong, why not gratify itself by clenching its 
fists and punishing soundly those miserable heretics 
the Waldenses, and Hussites, and Protestants, for 

4: 



74 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

their obstinate heresies, and those detestable Moorish 
and Saracen infidels for their devilish infidelity ? 

Thus it is that the doctrine of infallibilities has 
ever tended to make men bigots and persecutors. In 
the case of the Mohammedans we all see it and ad- 
mit it at once ; and yet it is no more true with refer- 
ence to them, probably not so true, as with reference 
to Christians. 

Fourth. This doctrine has closed the eyes of Chris- 
tendom to an astonishing degree for centuries, to 
the whole range of moral and religious truth that 
we are beginning now to know as natural religion. 
JTot until our modern thought had begun to chafe 
against the narrow bars of infallibilities, and make 
attempts to push out beyond to see what was to 
be discovered there, did it discern this magnificent 
realm of thought and truth. By natural religion I 
mean the religious and theological teachings of 
(1) physical natnre through all its domain of feet and 
law, (2) of universal human experience, and (3) of 
the intuitions of the individual human soul. 

I say this whole triple realm of truth has been 
sought out in almost the exact degree in which the 
infallibility of the Bible and Church has been doubt- 
ed. So long as men felt that the ipse dixit of the 
Pope or a council or the author of one of the books 
of our Scriptures was sufficient, of course there was 
no inducement to go beyond and inquire what the 
constitution of nature said by laws and analogies ; 
or what the voice of universal experience uttered as 
speaking through history or general literature; or 
what other religions of the world taught; or what 
the deep consciousness of the individual human soul 
declared. 

But when doubt with reference to the sufficiency 



THE DESIRE FOR INFALLIBILITIES IN RELIGION. 75 

and infallibility of the former arose, and a secret sus- 
picion that there was land beyond their horizons, 
then the minds of men pushed out upon new seas, to 
discover these new continents. Thanks then to that 
" skepticism," so called, to that " infidelity," so brand- 
ed, which has done so much to free the world from a 
tyranny so cruel and withering, and lead the race for- 
ward into a liberty so glorious in results of good. 

I freely admit that there is power in the dogma of 
infallibility. The claim put forward by the support- 
ers of this dogma that there is in it a sort of conser- 
vative power, which, in this age of violent thought 
agitation tends in a certain sense to keep men steady, 
I do not hesitate to admit. Unquestionably so long 
as you keep men believing in an infallible Church, 
or in an infallible Pope, or in an infallible Bible, 
they are in a sense anchored in belief. But anchored 
how? 

To rot. Ships are not built to lie tied fast in 
stagnant waters, but to sail the seas. No more was 
the human mind intended to lie cable-bound in the 
back bays of superstition, but to sail the seas of 
thought and progress. While, therefore, I grant 
the conservative influence claimed for the doctrine of 
infallibility, I hold that it is only the conservative 
influence of all superstition and every form of igno- 
rance. And shall we refrain from making efforts to 
banish any kind of darkness and superstitious error 
of the past, because it is conservative in its tendency, 
and because, so long as men are fettered of mind by 
it they are safe from danger of rushing into infidelity 
and mental anarchy 1 Eeferring to our figure of a 
ship again ; as well might her owners keep her for- 
ever fastened to the wharf in the harbor, for fear if 
they loosed her cable, and set her forth upon the 



76 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

waters she was made to breast, she might run out of 
her course or be wrecked in a storm. 

Says Macaulay, " There is no remedy for the evils 
of liberty but liberty." This is as true in the thought 
world as in the social world. They who argue for 
the preservation of error on account of its safety, 
know not what they say. There is no safety but in 
truth. It should be taught calmly, candidly, con- 
scientiously, often very gradually j but it should be 
taught, 

To prove that the power which lies in the doctrine 
of infallibilities is only the power of all ignorance 
and superstition, observe where it is most manifest. 
"Who are the firmest believers in infallibilities? As 
between Catholics and Protestants, the former con- 
fessedly are. Among Catholics, those who are men- 
tally in the greatest bondage, are almost invariably 
the firmest adherents to it, while the more intelligent 
and free-minded revolt against it; as, witness the 
late ecumenical council in Borne, and the resulting 
Old Catholic movement of Bollinger and his col- 
leagues. Again, among Protestants who are most 
inclined to infallibility theories, and cling most tena- 
ciously to the dogma of verbal inspiration of the 
Bible ? As a rule, the more ignorant, narrow-minded, 
and unprogressive. 

The two great poles in the religious world are, on 
the one hand, a religion of absolute, external infalli- 
bilities. That finds its most logical and consistent 
embodiment to-day in Romanisin. Toward that pole 
naturally drift ignorance, superstition, and mental in- 
dolence. The other pole of the religious world is 
Natural Religion. Natural religion finds its greatest 
teacher of the past — where if not in Jesus ? and its 
best embodiment to-day — where if not in Unitarian- 



THE DESIRE FOR INFALLIBILITIES IN RELIGION. 77 

ism or some form of liberal Christianity ? Toward this 
naturally drift knowledge and mental activity. Ortho- 
dox Protestantism stands between the two and must 
go to pieces. Xot in a day, nor in a century, but some 
time. The clearest and most prescient minds have 
long seen this. It is a stream whose waters tend 
ever to divide, one part flowing toward greater au- 
thority — a more complete and all-pervading infalli- 
bility than its genius will permit of, or than is found 
anywhere this side of Eomanism — and the other part 
tending as strongly to flow toward a greater and 
more perfect liberty than is found anywhere short of 
Liberal Christianity, or Natural Eeligion. Hence, I 
say, the logical necessity of Orthodox Protestantism 
as we see it to-day, eventually passing away. 

The time must eventually come also, when Cathol- 
icism will pass away. Xot by any means so soon as 
in the case of Orthodox Protestantism, because it has 
no such double strain upon it. Though an error, Eo- 
manism is a logical consistency ; whereas, Orthodox 
Protestantism is not only nearly as palpable an error 
as its rival, but it is at its very center a logical incon- 
sistency. An infallible Bible, and the right of indi- 
vidual interpretation of that Bible, are principles 
which, in their nature, are as irreconcilable as fire and 
water. The granting of either one of them in its 
completeness logically destroys the other. So that 
Orthodox Protestantism carries in its own hands the 
beetle and wedge; nay, logically, with one of its 
hands it holds the wedge and with the other wields 
the beetle, which are eventually to sever it. On the 
other hand, Catholicism will not pass away until it is 
destroyed by the forces of truth and progress battling 
with, but ultimately overcoming, united, consistent, 
tough error. 



78 OETHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

!No ! we liave no reason to believe that man was 
made to slmt liis eyes and walk blindly ; or to trust 
himself to any guide outside of himself and the en- 
lightening voices of God, which never since the 
world began spoke in so many ways or with so clear 
utterance to the race as they are doing to-day — will 
we but earnestly listen ! Man was not made to be a 
bondman to any, even to his Creator Himself, but to 
be a freeman, walking ever with free volition where 
it seems best to him that he should go. True, he 
was made to obey, but it was to obey the commands 
of God speaking through conscience and reason, and 
through laws found out by his own searching. Nor 
was he made to shut up all his faculties but one, and 
receive truth through one only direction. Rather 
was he made like the creatures that St. John saw in 
the Apocalypse — only in a deeper sense — full of 
eyes within and without. 

A hundred avenues of truth were opened to him. 
He was placed in a world whose whole history was 
the writing of God. He was surrounded with nature 
uttering God in ten thousand ways. His existence 
was so ordered that everything without and within 
him — everything with which he should come into 
contact in himself, and in others, and in the physical 
creation — should call upon him unceasingly to ob- 
serve, to think, to investigate, to find out for himself 
ever better knowledge and wisdom, to let go the 
hand of authority upon which it would be so easy to 
lean, and to set out to walk bravely upon his own feet. 

Man could be developed only by this process. 
Only thus could strength come to his thinking, clear- 
ness to his judgment, certainty to his moral convic- 
tions. So long as he is carried, or arbitrarily led, he 
remains a child. God did not wish him to remain 



THE DESIRE FOR INFALLIBILITIES IN RELIGION. 79 

forever a child, but to grow to the strength of moral 
and spiritual manhood; therefore He gave him no 
crutches of infallibilities to lean upon. Instead of 
putting truth bare in his hand, in the form of an in- 
fallible book, or the dictum of an infallible church 
or pope, he chose rather to wrap it up ; a portion in 
every rose leaf, and a portion in every star beam ; a 
portion in the smile of infancy, and a portion in the 
sigh of age ; a portion of it fresh and bright and life- 
giving in every object, everywhere he should turn. 
Himself also he chose not to reveal in some mere bod- 
ily form, as man seems so much to desire, but instead 
to enter with living presence into every part of His 
creation, from the human soul to the starry heavens, 
and forever with ten thousand voices to call man to 
come forth and touch the innumerable doors, wait- 
ing to fly open at his touch, to afford him a passage 
into the deepest and holiest arcana. 

This I say was God's way of dealing with his 
human children; — a way that would make God be- 
come most to them, and nature become most to them, 
and life become most to them; because it would 
most conduce to their mental and spiritual develop- 
ment. This, and not the way of dwarfing authorities. 

I know well there is an instinct within us that at 
first thought shrinks from this kind of dealing; that 
cries out for the certain at once, and chafes impatiently 
at all delay and uncertainty that enters anywhere into 
our human lives. The mother watching over her sick 
child, says, u Oh, for a physician or a medicine that 
will be sure to cure my child ! I cannot bear this un- 
certainty." The young man standing at the branch- 
ing ways of opening life, says, " Oh, that I knew 
with infallible certainty which one to choose, this or 
that ! It is cruel that I must bear an uncertainty 



80 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

that involves so much." The patriot who loves his 
country more than his own life, in the hour of na- 
tional peril says, " Oh, why cannot the curtain lift? 
Why may I not be permitted to look into the future ? 
Must I go forward on mere probabilities when so 
much is at stake for millions — for generations to 
come 1 Will not heaven for once speak to tell me 
wiiat I may do to save the State ? Must I strike 
with a vail over my eyes, not knowing what will come 
of it, salvation or ruin ? n 

And truly, friends, looked at in the light of these 
crisis times of life, it does seem hard that we are 
compelled to grope our way so darkly through life, 
with no infallible voice to speak to us out of the un- 
known, in answer to our sighs and cries. And yet 
notwithstanding all, I press the thought that it is best 
as it is ; because it is by this very uncertainty— it is 
by being thus thrown upon ourselves, to seek, to try, 
to push out into the unknown, that men grow wiser 
and stronger and that nations advance. 

The German j)hilosopher and poet Lessing said, 
" If God should hold out truth to me in one hand and 
search for truth in the other, and bid me take my 
choice, I should reply — i Oh ! God, with all rever- 
ence and humility I beg that thou wilt keep the 
truth, and give to me search after the truth.' n 

I do not know as I should be willing to say as 
much as that, indeed I am very sure I should not ; 
nevertheless, there is certainly a large element of 
wisdom in what Lessing says. There is a sense in 
which building the house is better than the house ; 
earning money better than the money; getting 
knowledge better than the knowledge; because, 
such building, earning, getting, makes us to he more, 
and therefore more able to acquire and earn and build 
things greater and better still. 



THE DESIRE FOR INFALLIBILITIES IN RELIGION. 81 

The child complains with bitterness that the hori- 
zon which he sees is uncertain, and runs ever away 
from him when lie attempts to reach it. But the 
man rejoices that the horizon pushes back and back 
and back, and thus reveals unheard-of worlds that 
else lay hidden behind its rim. 

But it is claimed that we must have a revelation 
of absolute infallibility, or else we are utterly adrift 
with reference to all the problems — nay, with refer- 
ence to the very existence of the next world. Not at 
all ! Not at all ! No man can show any reason why 
we need to have an infallible revelation with regard 
to what is to take place a hundred or a thousand or 
ten thousand years hence, any more than with regard 
to what is to take place ten years or one year hence. 
Can't we trust God as well on the other side of the 
grave as on this 1 ? I am aware that a large part of 
Christendom have got themselves in the habit of 
thinking that to launch out upon eternity, without 
an infallible book revelation concerning it, is a most 
dreadful thing to contemplate; whereas, to launch 
out upon a new and unknown year or day, which 
may have in its hand in no inconsiderable measure the 
destinies of that eternity, without any infallible rev- 
elation concerning it, this is nothing. God would be 
cruel, men say, not to have given us a revelation of 
infallible certainty about the former, but they do not 
mind much, having no revelation concerning the lat- 
ter. Now this is all wrong. It is simply a foolish 
way of thinking that men have got into — that for 
the most part they have been preached into. 

I can imagine to myself a man working himself up 

into an awful fever of consternation because the year 

he is stepping out upon on January first, is blind and. 

uncertain to him. I can imagine him soliloquizing 

4* 



82 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

to himself, " How do I know but that the most awful 
calamities may befall me this year ? My house may 
burn, my property may be swept away, my sons may 
turn drunkards, my daughters may die, I may have 
the hydrophobia, my wife may become insane. I do 
not know ! It is an awful 4 leap in the dark ' I am 
taking in entering on this new year. Oh ! why, if 
God is good, and cares for me, does he not let me 
see ? does he not give me an infallible revelation 
beforehand of what is coming ? n 

I say I can imagine a man working himself up 
into a fever of consternation like this, over the fact 
that he has no certain out-look upon the year before 
him ; or, for that matter, upon the day before him ; 
for we none of us know what a day or an hour 
may bring forth. And such a course would be every 
whit as reasonable as it is for men to paint in the 
vivid colors that they do the awfulness of the condi- 
tion of us all in the world to come, if you rob the 
Bible of its absolute infallibility. 

The truth is, men have every reason to trust God ; 
if for a day or a year, then for a thousand years and ten 
thousand times ten thousand. Has God brought us 
safely in life thus far ? Has every day of our existence 
thus far come laden with unfailing goodness, though 
not announced fully beforehand? Do we expect that 
He will deal with us in much the same way throughout 
the rest of our earthly lives, though He has not revealed 
to us how ? Then what reason have we for fear or dis- 
trust concerning the life to come? Will God be less 
kind there than here? If we have to go forth into 
the darkness of every new hour, and every new day, 
and every new year of all our lives without a sign of 
an authoritative revelation concerning these from 
God, and yet God always leads us with safety and 



THE DESIRE FOR INFALLIBILITIES IN RELIGION. 83 

much blessing through them, why need we fear when 
death comes, to lie down in God's arms? Why not 
thus lie down as expectant and confident that all 
will be well beyond, as you lay down last night ex- 
pecting that all would be well this morning? Could 
anything be more infallible than are God's wisdom 
and justice and paternity ? And have we not more 
infallible revelation of these than mere words, by 
whomsoever penned, could ever make it ? 

The little child may well say on moving-day, " My 
father and mother, who have loved me so well and 
cared for me so faithfully in the old home, I know 
will love me and care for me also in the new home to 
which they are taking me," So we may say, certainly 
with equal confidence, of God, our Father, on the 
great moving-day of death. Indeed it is faithless- 
ness to doubt or say otherwise, though the home 
to which we go be one that our eyes have never seen. 

Says Dr. Ohapin, " To me there is something thrill- 
ing and exalting in the thought that we are drifting 
forward into a splendid mystery — into something 
that no mortal eye has yet seen, and no intelligence 
declared." And truly why should there not be some- 
thing thrilling and exalting in such a thought, when 
we know that that mystery is planned and presided 
over by the Infinite Wisdom and the Infinite Good- 
ness? 

Oh ! friends, u except a corn of wheat fall into the 
ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die it 
bringeth forth much fruit." Out of the dead grain 
comes forth a higher and more manifold life. 

So, as it were out of the seed-corn of the old ex- 
ternal infallibilities dead, there waits to rise a new 
infallibility that transcends book and pope and coun- 
cil, that lives and asserts itself forever in the soul of 



84 ORTHODOXY AND EEVIVALISM. 

man — the infallibility of confidence and trust in Sim 
u with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turn- 
ing ; " who in due time, as we are prepared for the 
revelation, will make known to us all things that we 
long to know ; and who, until that time, alike in this 
world and the next, will guard us and all our inter- 
ests with a Father's strength and love. 



A PLEA FOR REASONABLE TREATMENT OF 
THE BIBLE. 



" These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that 
they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched 
the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so." — Acts 
xvii. 11. 

Dr. Chaining lias said: "As Unitarians our 
leading principle in interpreting Scripture is this : 
That the Bible is a book written for inen, in the lan- 
guage of men, and that the meaning is to be sought 
in the same manner as that of other books." 

If its meaning is not to be sought in the same 
manner as that of other books, can any one tell in 
what manner it is to be sought ? 

For years, in the class-rooms of theological 
teachers and in the books of theological writers who 
opposed Channing's idea, and would set up some 
rule for studying and interpreting the Bible different 
from that which they would set up regarding other 
books, has it been my lot earnestly to seek that 
different rule ; but I have never been able to find 
any such rule, which, fairly carried out, did not 
make of the Bible, if not an absolute chaos and 
collection of nonsense, at least a thing of wax, which 
the reader could mold into any fashion of doctrine 
or teaching he chose — Calvinism, Arminianism, 
Swedenborgianism, Universalism, Spiritualism, Ad- 
ventism, Catholicism, Unitarianism, or literally any- 



86 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

thing else under the sun. I do not know how any 
thoughtful man who has examined the subject can 
fail of the conviction that it is this idea that the 
Bible is to be interpreted somehow differently from 
other books — according to some peculiar canons of 
interpretation applicable nowhere else — that has 
done more than almost anything else to turn the Old 
and New Testaments so literally into a vast theologi- 
cal fish-pond, where a man, by changing his bait, 
or throwing in his hook a little deeper or a little 
shallower, or in a little different place, may catch 
about any kind of doctrinal fish he pleases. I do 
not mean to deny that some of the difficulty which 
has been experienced in arriving at uniformity of views 
regarding the Bible, lies in the nature of the Bible 
itself — in the fact that it is made up of so many inde- 
pendent parts written in times so far separated from 
each other, by such a variety of authors, and for so 
widely different purposes. Doubtless some of the 
difficulty does lie here. It would be strange indeed, 
if, in a collection of literature so extensive and 
heterogeneous, there should not both seem to be and 
really be, some diversity of ideas and sentiments. 
However, I do not think it is here that the greatest 
difficulty arises. The main difficulty it seems to me 
lies in the strange notion which has been so widely 
prevalent in Christendom for so many generations, 
that the Bible is not to be studied and understood 
as other books are to be studied and understood, 
but that, when men approach it, they must hold their 
reason in abeyance, and adopt canons and methods 
of interpretation which they would never dream of 
applying anywhere else. 

In setting out to inquire how to study the Bible, 
then, I plant my feet unhesitatingly at the outset 



REASONABLE TREATMENT OF THE BIBLE. 87 

upon this dictum of Channing, that " the Bible is a 
book written for men, in the language of men, and 
that the meaning is to be sought in the same manner 
precisely as that of other books." 

However, this, though an answer to our question, 
and as I conceive a true answer, is nevertheless not 
enough. It is too general. We want an answer a 
good deal more specific — going a good deal more 
into details and practical applications. Let us seek 
such practical and detailed answer. 

1. The Bible, as any other book which we would 
get much good from, we should study with sympathy 
and appreciation. Of course it is possible for a person 
to begin the study of a book prejudiced against it, and 
yet in the end arrive at a very just appreciation of 
it, and get much valuable return from his study. 
However, as a rule, it will not be so. As a rule we 
are apt to find about what we look for in books as 
well as in men. Prejudiced against a man or a 
book, we shall see all faults ; the best that is in either 
we cannot see. Hence the value to us of others' 
recommendations of a book we are going to read or 
study. Hence, too, the advantage we have in reading 
famous books. We come to them prepared to find 
them good. As we go forward with our reading or 
study, instead of having a part, and oftentimes a 
very considerable part, of our mental energy dissi- 
pated in half fears that we are not doing wisely in 
reading our book, and in trying to make up our 
minds whether it is really a valuable book or not, 
and if valuable, how valuable, we have all our 
energy of mind and feeling left us to put into appre- 
ciation, enjoyment, gathering up of treasures from 
the pages as we go on. 

One of our celebrated poets sends a poem to a lead- 



88 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

ing monthly without attaching his name to it. It 
is rejected and forgotten. Some time after he sends 
the same poem over his own name, to the same maga- 
zine. It is accepted readily, and pronounced by 
both editor and public to be one of the author's best. 
Why does the editor see the poem with so different 
eyes the second time ? Because the author's name 
attached prepared him before he begins reading to 
appreciate what he reads, whereas in the other case 
the anonymous character of the production has 
afforded him no such preparation. This illustrates 
what I mean when I say that if we would study the 
Bible in a way to make it most valuable to us, 
we need to enter on our study not hostile or cynical 
or prejudiced or even indifferent, but in a spirit of 
positive expectancy, sympathy, appreciation ; just 
as we need to enter upon the study of any other 
book or thing. 

2. We should study the Bible systematically and 
comprehensively j as we would any other book. A 
very common, indeed I may say, an almost universal 
defect in the study of the Bible, is desultoriness, 
fragmentariness, studying it by detached bits, with- 
out ever getting, or in most cases ever attempting to 
get, any adequate idea of the relation of its parts 
to each other — what writers in it speak with author- 
ity, and what are only the echoes of a voice; what 
books of it are great books, of universal interest to 
the race, and of permanent value, and what are only 
of local andtemporaryimportan.ee; what truths in 
it are central truths, seed truths, truths for all time 
and all men, and what are only for the particular 
age and nation and state of society which give 
them birth. Sunday-schools have always been 
greatly at fault in this matter. They have forever 



SEASONABLE TREATMENT OF THE BIBLE. 89 

busied themselves with teaching their pupils texts 
of Scripture culled from here and there, and com- 
menting upon the minutiae of Bible teachings and 
events, and almost never have attempted anything 
in the way of broad and comprehensive work. So, 
too, the common way of reading the Bible consecu- 
tively, or in the order of the boohs, contributes to 
make our knowledge of it fragmentary and unre- 
lated ; for of course every one is aware that the ar- 
rangement of the different books as they now stand 
in our Bibles is about as hap-hazard and unsystem- 
atic as could be ; — prose, poetry, legend, biography, 
history, prophecy, and epistles following each other 
with only the smallest showing of order or sequence. 
Then again our universal habit as preachers, of 
preaching from detached texts, tends doubtless to 
promote the same fragmentariness in people's ideas 
of the Bible. Finally, the common notion of the 
infallibility of the Bible has contributed probably 
more than anything else to the same end. If all 
parts of the Bible are equally inspired, and all are 
infallible revelations from God, why of course it 
makes little difference what we read or where we 
read in the Bible, whether in the Chronicles, the 
Psalms, the Gospels or the Apocalypse ; since every 
verse, any way, is a heavenly pearl of more value 
than we can ever find out. Never, only as men come 
to understand that the books of the Bible came from 
widely different sources, representing widely different 
degrees of inspiration, and are themselves of widely 
different importance, can really broad and compre- 
hensive study of the Bible become a possibility. 

3. We should study the Bible, as we should any 
other book, in the constant light of reason and common 
sense. What are reason and common sense given to 



90 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

man for if not to use ? And if he ought to use them 
anywhere, why not in the most important things ? 
I suppose it is impossible to deny the general propo- 
sition, that just in the degree that we fail to be gov- 
erned by our reason and common sense we degrade 
ourselves toward the brutes which we stigmatize as 
unreasoning, and just in the degree that Vie follow 
our reason and shape our lives according to its teach- 
ings we rise into true manhood. Why in relation 
to religion should there be a reversal, and a man here 
be commended for holding his reason in abeyance — 
a procedure which in relation to everything else de- 
grades him ? No ! The truth evidently is, if religion 
be the most important concern of the race, then there 
is nothing in regard to which the race should use 
their reason so constantly and carefully and thor- 
oughly as in regard to religion ; and if anywhere a 
man may shut the eyes which God has given him, at 
least it must not be here. We may study our geome- 
tries, our astronomies, our Bacons, our Platos, our 
Shakespeares, if we will, with chains upon our rea- 
son; but when we come to study our Bible and our 
books of religion — those books which have to do with 
the highest interests of our being, then as we care 
for those highest interests, and as we would honor the 
God who gave us our reason, we must strike off the 
chains. 

4. Once more, we should study the Bible as any 
other book, in connection with any and all helps which 
ive may be able to get, and in the light of the best cul- 
ture of the time. 

It seems hard for men to realize how generally 
partial seeing is false seeing, and partial views are 
worthless, if not worse than worthless, views. Par- 
ticularly does it seem difficult for Christian men to 



SEASONABLE TREATMENT OF THE BIBLE. 91 

realize this with reference to the Bible and religion. 
The old adage warns us to beware of the man of one 
book. For myself, I have never been able quite sat- 
isfactorily to make out what that means. Perhaps it 
may have either one of two or three meanings. But 
I am convinced that the sense in which it has the 
deepest significance is this : Beware of the man of 
one book in much the same way that you would be- 
ware of a mule that knows nothing only to go on 
in its own stupid way and balk or kick when 
you try to get it to go in a better. If there 
is anything in this world that will make narrow- 
ness, if there is anything that will make bigotry, 
if there is anything that will make egotism, it 
is one book ; and all the same whether that one 
book be the Bible or any other. As well talk of 
knowing the Alps when you have only wandered up 
a single ravine; or the world when you have only ex- 
plored a single city ; or botany Avhen you have ana- 
lyzed only a single plant, as to talk about knowing 
truth and religion in any but a narrow and partial 
and altogether imperfect sense, by studying them in 
any one book or through any one channel. Granted 
that the ravine up which you have wandered in the 
Alps equals or surpasses any other in beauty, pictur- 
esqueness, grandeur ; or that the city you have ex- 
plored is the largest and most important in the world ; 
or that the flower you have analyzed is the best exist- 
ing type of the largest and most extended floral family 
on the globe ; yet that does not alter the case at all. 
One flower isn't botany, one ravine isn't the Alps, one 
city isn't the world. And what is more, you cannot 
understand even that one flower itself in any but the 
meagerest and most utterly inadequate way, unless 
you have studied vast numbers of other flowers ; nor 



92 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

that one single ravine, unless you have studied 
many other, not only ravines, but mountain ranges 
and geological formations ; nor that one city, unless 
you have studied carefully and laboriously other 
cities and other civilizations. So, to a proper under- 
standing of religious truth — nay, to a proper under- 
standing of the Bible itself — there is needed a knowl- 
edge of a great many other books and a great many 
other things besides the Bible. 

And I bear upon this point, not simply because 
there is much popular misconception concerning it, 
but because, what is worse, this misconception is be- 
ing systematically and persistently promulgated by 
a very large class of just now very popular religious 
teachers. The whole class of revivalists and lay 
preachers of the day, as well as those regular 
preachers who especially rejoice in the name u evan- 
gelical," are, almost to a man, stout promulgators of 
this idea. u The Bible," they cry; " the Bible, just 
as it reads, without note or comment," (except the 
shallow and ridiculous comments which they them- 
selves all the while flood it with) " is the one thing 
needful, the one fountain of perfect and sufficient 
truth." You can hardly listen to a discourse from 
one of these men without being summoned from one 
to fifty times to hear what God says. They know 
all about that. And what is it that God says ? It is 
something that they have found in, or, quite as 
likely, put into, some fragment of Scripture which 
they have fished out of some one of the twenty-seven 
books of the New Testament, or thirty-nine of the 
Old. At best they have got a drop of water under 
a microscope ; and they declare, in the name of all that 
is high and holy, that it is the ocean. At best they 
have got a bit of bark, or a bud, from the tree of God's 



REASONABLE TREATMENT OF THE BIBLE. 93 

truth, and they beg of you, with strong pleadings and 
tears, to accept it from them as the whole tree. 

The most conspicuous of this class of men just 
now, of course, is Mr. Moody. His discourses, as 
you all know, are principally made up of texts culled 
from here, there, and anywhere from Genesis to 
Kevelation (as all alike the infallible word of God), 
heated to a white heat in his own vivid imagination 
and glowing feeling, and then poured out upon his 
hearers with a molten mass of accompanying com- 
ment, anecdote, and exhortation. He insists upon 
bringing everything to the test of the Bible, accord- 
ing to this microscopic way of looking at the Bible. 
That is to say, if you have what you regard to be 
truth, and bring it forward, the proof of it must be, 
Can you match it with some Bible text, or " thus 
saith the Lord"? (in much the same way that you 
might lay down a cent and I might match it with 
another cent). If you can, there is no further appeal. 
Mr. Moody is undoubtedly as thoroughly a man of one 
book as any at all eminent man of this age. And 
this he glories in. He tells us that he made a great 
mistake in his earlier years of preaching in not con- 
fining himself exclusively enough to one book, the 
Bible. And the true way to study the Bible, he 
urges, is not to study it in the light of reason, or 
science, or culture, or the outside helps which come 
through the broad scholarship of the times, and 
through the other religions or religious books of the 
world, but it is, to study it simply in its own light. 
If a passage of Scripture puzzles you, find a parallel 
passage; probably this will give you light. If it 
does not, find another, and another. If no light 
comes from these, carry it to God in prayer, and then 
light will certainly come. 



94 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

Now certainly, in an age of enlightenment like ours, 
this kind of religious teaching is melancholy enough 
to contemplate, even when coming to us from Mr. 
Moody, or any of our lay preachers, or professional 
revivalists. What then shall we say when we see 
the same coming from sources a great deal higher — 
from pastors of great city churches and editors of 
leading religious papers ? It is only a few months 
since I read a lengthy essay given by one of the most 
noted ministers in Boston, before a ministerial gath- 
ering in that city, in which he came out in the most 
emphatic terms in favor of all this kind of thing. 
He declared that no sermon ought ever to be 
preached which was not drawn from the Bible direct ; 
and no preacher in preparing a sermon ought ever 
even 'to refer to any book outside of the Bible and 
Webster's Dictionary. And this utterance is only 
one of hundreds of similar import, coming to us even 
from directions where we should little expect the re- 
appearance of such out- grown ideas. Indeed, it seems 
as if men who had grown a few years ago ashamed 
to avow such sentiments, have, since the furor created 
in the public mind by Mr. Moody, been emboldened 
to reassert them. The revivalism of England and 
this country of the past two or three years seems to 
have been a great wave to push the Christian world 
back from the enlightenment and breadth of thought 
to which it was advancing, toward the old narrow- 
ness and unreason ; and in nothing more plainly so 
than in this matter of study and interpretation of 
the Bible. 

Matthew Arnold has well said that the man of one 
book, " the man of no range in his reading, must al- 
most inevitably misunderstand the Bible, cannot 
treat it largely enough, must be inclined to treat it 



REASONABLE TREATMENT OF THE BIBLE. 95 

all alike, and to press every word. For, on the one 
hand, he has not enough experience of the way in 
which men have thought and spoken, to feel what 
the Bible writers were about, to read between the 
lines, to discern where he ought to rest with his 
whole weight, and where he ought to pass lightly; 
while, on the other hand, the void and hunger in his 
mind, from lack of aliment, almost irresistibly impels 
him to fill it by taking literally and amplifying cer- 
tain data which he finds in the Bible, whether they 
ought to be so dealt with or no." u To understand 
that the language is fluid, passing, literary, not rigid, 
fixed, and scientific, is the first step toward a right 
understanding of the Bible. But to take this very 
first step some experience of how men have thought 
and expressed themselves is necessary, and this is 
culture." u Culture, therefore — knowing the best 
that has been thought and known in the world, and 
moreover, the power, through reading, to estimate 
the proportion and relation in what we read," this is 
a thing of the very first importance in Scripture in- 
terpretation and study. 

So, then, let us beware of the man of one book. 
Let us see to it that we neither become ourselves 
persons of one book, nor accept any one else as fitted 
at all to be a guide to us in the understanding of im- 
portant things, who is a person of one book. Let us 
understand that he who understands but one book 
necessarily understands that poorly; and especially 
that this must be the case with such a book as the 
Bible. 

Thus I come back once more to the statement 
with which I opened this division of my discourse : 
We must study the Bible as any other book, not sim- 
ply with appreciation, and comprehensiveness, and 



96 ORTHOODXY AND REVIVALISM. 

reason, but also with all helps which we may be able 
to get, and in the light of the best culture of the 
time. Nothing less than this is rational ; certainly, 
nothing less than this can be pleasing to Him from 
whom all truth, alike inside Bibles and out, comes ; 
and most certainly of all, nothing less than this can 
save the Bible from its enemies. 

What do I mean ? I mean that any other way of 
studying and interpreting the Bible than this, neces- 
sarily produces religious ideas so poor and narrow, so 
utterly out of harmony with the spirit of the time, and 
so inadequate to the wants of the time, that the best 
intelligence of the age, touching them, at once bounds 
back from them as a ball from the wall ; and rebound- 
ing from them it will rebound also in large measure 
from the Bible, in which they claim to have their 
source and stronghold. It must be so, it can't be 
otherwise. Indeed, the very thing is actually going on 
already before our eyes, and long has been. The 
drift of the intelligence of the age away from the Bible, 
of which none complain more loudly than our evan- 
gelical friends, is not really a drift away from the 
Bible at all. Really, it is a drift away from the Bible 
as interpreted by the Christian church, with the light 
of reason and culture shut out. The Bible, interpreted 
according as reason, and common sense, and scholar- 
ship, and science — particularly the science of com- 
parative religion — would interpret it if left untram- 
meled, the intelligence of the time would no more 
drift away from than it would drift away from 
itself. So that let us know that just in the degree 
that the intelligence of the age has gone off, and 
continues to go off, and in the future shall go off, 
from the Bible, just in that degree are our methods 
of Bible study and interpretation false and wrong, by 



REASONABLE TREATMENT OF THE BIBLE. 97 

reason of their fragmentariness, their irrationality, 
their hostility to broad, unsectarian culture. 

One question naturally suggests itself which ought 
to be answered before I close. It is the question : 
Is the kind of study and interpretation of the Bible 
which I urge safe, especially for the young ? Is it 
not wisest — nay, is it not absolutely necessary, at 
least in Sunday-schools and in instructing our chil- 
dren in our own families, to fall back upon the old 
methods? If we undertake to teach the young the 
real truth about the Bible — how it came to be — the 
difference in age and authorship and value between 
different books — that there are things in it stated as 
truth which we, with our larger knowledge, know 
now not to be truth ; and things taught or sanction- 
ed as right which we know not to be right, shall we 
not find we are doing a very dangerous thing — a 
thing which will utterly unsettle them, make them 
reject the Bible entirely, and leave them without any 
religious beliefs, or even foundations on which to 
build religious beliefs ? 

I know there are persons who feel that such would 
be the case ; and I confess that the time has been 
when I myself have felt the same. To have such a 
result come from our religious teachings would be 
something which I think few earnest and thoughtful 
persons could do otherwise than deeply and painful- 
ly regret. And certainly those of us who have our- 
selves sailed the wintry sea of doubt, and only after 
years of fierce storms and awful darkness found a 
morning land of hope and faith, we, at least, should 
shrink from a course that would launch the young 
about us, who trust us, and the children of our own 
homes, upon a deep so dark and drear and dangerous. 

However, I, for one, am convinced that there is 
5 



98 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

little ground for apprehension in this direction. 
Indeed, I am convinced that the grounds for ap- 
prehension lie almost altogether on the opposite 
side. The course which I recommend, of dealing 
with the Bible honestly, instead of being the dan- 
gerous course to pursue with the young, is, in my 
judgment, the only safe course to pursue with tehm. 
And this conviction I have reached, not in a mo- 
ment, but after some years of careful and earnest, 
and, I confess, almost anxious, study, observation, 
and practical experience with this method. I have 
found that honest teaching makes honest and candid 
pupils; thoughtful and sincere and earnest teaching 
makes thoughtful and sincere and earnest pupils. 
Whereas, teaching tinctured at all by pretense or 
make-believe, or in any resx>ect other than downright 
honest and sincere, in the long run defeats the very 
object had in view by the teacher, making the pupils 
suspicious of the teacher, and suspicious of the things 
taught, and eventually impelling them to the very 
skepticism which the teacher foolishly thought to 
save them from by his evasions and make-believes. 
So that whereas I would never jmrade before the 
young any inaccuracy of statement, or indelicacy of 
language, or erroneous moral precept or example 
found in the Bible, yet at the same time I would 
never cover up these things or say they were not; 
and when I came to things in the Bible which I 
could not satisfactorily explain I should honestly say 
so ; while all the time and in every way in my power 
I should be steadily endeavoring to teach those 
under my charge just what the true value of the 
Bible consists in, as distinguished from those things 
which do not affect its real and permanent value at 
all. And thus I should feel sure that I was doing 



REASONABLE TREATMENT OF THE BIBLE. 99 

the best tiring that could possibly be done to make 
my pupils not skeptics but believers — believers 
whose belief would be firm and abiding because 
built upon foundations well laid — not rejectors and 
contemners of the Bible, but accepters, prizers, 
lovers, reverers of the Bible for its own worthy sake. 

Seldom does my heart ache as it aches when I 
think of the vast army of children and youth all up 
and down this thinking land who are being steadily, 
w r eek after week, year after year, taught in churches 
and Sunday-schools and homes such ideas about the 
book I love as I know will not stand the test of com- 
ing times. For I look forward only a little while and 
see thousands of the more thoughtful of them com- 
ing to the point where, under the clearer light and 
broader intelligence which they are sure to reach, 
they cannot possibly believe any longer what they 
have been taught — the point where they will see that 
the Bible is not the book they thought it was; that 
it does not rest upon the foundations which they 
supposed supported it. What will they do when 
that time comes ? I earnestly ask the question. 

Well, there will be three classes of them, and what 
they will do will depend upon which of the three 
classes they happen to belong to. If they belong to 
the first class, of dishonest, or timid, or time-serving 
people, they will go on carrying in their hearts a se- 
cret and very likely growing skepticism, but appear- 
ing outwardly to believe as they always did, and fill- 
ing places more or less punctiliously in the old 
churches of their fathers. 

If they belong to the second class, of intellectually 
honest persons, but rather impetuous and not very 
fully developed on the side of the intuitional and the 
spiritual, and especially if they are so situated that 



100 ORTHODOXY AND EEVIVALISM. 

they must take stands without being able to get time 
to investigate thoroughly, they will rush off on a tan- 
gent of open skepticism and infidelity, and nobody 
can predict where they will finally draw up. 

If they belong to the third class of persons, who, 
in addition to being thoroughly honest, are also ear- 
nest and measurably self-poised, and of naturally deep 
religious intuitions, and withal so situated as to have 
time and helps and encouragements, they will enter 
upon a mental and spiritual battle, which they will 
fight and fight and fight, in hope and fear and some- 
times almost despair, with study and investigation 
and eager running after light in a hundred different 
directions, and such bitter prayer as no one who has 
not felt the very foundations of things giving way 
under him knows anything about, until, at last, after 
months, or more likely years, they will gain a hard- 
won but most precious victory, and for the rest of 
their lives have rest in a faith incomparably broader 
and richer than they have ever known ; — a faith that 
keeps every spiritual thing, and that keeps the Bible — 
no longer now, it is true, precisely the same book as be- 
fore, but yet a book that is none the less dear, none the 
less helpful, none the less inspired, none the less of God. 

I say of the vast armies of children and youth 
about us, who are being taught in church and Sun- 
day-school and home to study the Bible in the old 
way, on the old infallibility basis, thousands on 
thousands will sooner or later come to the point 
where they will find the old foundations gone, and 
themselves borne on an unseen tide to a place in one 
of these three classes which I have described. If we 
could be sure that all would find themselves in the 
third class, terrible as is the ordeal which they would 
have before them ere the final victory comes, still we 



REASONABLE TREATMENT OF THE BIBLE. 101 

might with some reason say, " It is well ; let it so 
be." But when we reflect that this third class (of 
those who will reach ultimate faith and rest) must of 
necessity be almost infinitesimal as compared with 
classes one and two (of those who will land in ulti- 
mate skepticism or hypocrisy) then how is the matter 
changed ! and how scarcely less than fearful does it 
become to think of going forward to teach the young 
those unreasonable notions about the Bible, and 
those false methods of interpreting the Bible, which 
in the increasing intelligence of the time must sooner 
or later break down with so disastrous consequences 
to those who hold them. No, friends ; the safe thing 
and the only safe thing is, for us to go forward as 
best we can to find out the truth about the Bible 
and religion, as about everything else ; and when we 
get it, cherish it sacredly in our heart's holiest place ; 
moreover, not fearing to speak it to others, or teach 
it to our children. Only let us be careful, especially 
in our teaching it to children, that we do so 
always reverently. If we are reverent, our children 
and the young whom we teach will catch the rever- 
ence from us. And let us be sure that if we can but 
succeed in making them not simply honest and sin- 
cere, but also reverent, seekers after the truth, all 
will be well. The Bible can never suffer — nothing 
that is from God can in the long run suffer from 
honest, sincere, reverent hands. 

I have protracted this discussion longer than I in- 
tended. My excuse is the importance — the as yet 
by any of us only faintly realized importance — of 
this great subject, which is every day coming more 
and more squarely to confront the whole Christian 
world: How, in the matter of study and interpreta- 
tion, shall we treat the Bible? Shall we treat it 
reasonably ? or shall w T e treat it unreasonably ? 



THE SUCCESS OF MESSRS. MOODY AND SANKEY. 



a Prove all tilings ; hold fast that which is good." — 1 Thess. 
v. 21. 

The two noted revivalists, who are reputed to 
have achieved such remarkable success in Great 
Britain and three of the great eastern cities of this 
country, have just promised (under certain condi- 
tions) to hold a series of revival meetings the coming 
autumn in Chicago. The probability of their ap- 
pearance here naturally suggests some inquiry about 
this matter of their success. 

I wish to ask two questions : (1.) How great has 
been their success ? (2.) What are the grounds or 
causes of that success ? 

1. How great has been their success ? I answer : 
As success is commonly measured, doubtless con- 
siderable ; though I think careful investigation will 
show us by no means as great as has been claimed, 
or as is probably generally supposed. 

We can pursue our inquiry better concerning the 
meetings in England than concerning the meetings 
held in this country, because more time has elapsed 
since the close of the former, and therefore the 
wheat of permanent result has had a fuller oppor- 
tunity to separate itself from the chaff of mere tran- 
sitory excitement. 

In The Boston Congregationalist of October 7, 1875, 



SUCCESS OF MESSRS. MOODY AND SANKEY. 103 

there appeared an article over the name of John T. 
Dexter, and dated London, England, September, 
1875, which contained these very remarkable dec- 
larations : " The return of Messrs. Moody and 
Sankey to their native country has been followed on 
this side by an entire cessation of the movement 
they so vigorously conducted, and which it was re- 
solved by the leave-taking conference of London 
ministers to be of the highest moment to continue." 
" The revival has, in the metropolis, altogether 
passed from sight and memory, in the brief interval 
elapsing since the departure of the revivalists." u I 
have serious doubts whether all ordinary Christian 
efforts will not be crippled by the withholding of 
funds by those who have subscribed (or will say they 
have) toward the cost of the revival." 

These are startling words to appear in an article 
printed in leaded type on the first page of a stanch 
orthodox sheet. 

But, further, some time after the departure of 
Moody and Sankey, a meeting of preachers was 
held in London, to discuss the question, " What has 
the revival left us ? " Many facts and opinions 
came to light quite as startling as anything written 
by Mr. Dexter. The first speaker said: "By going 
the whole round of the churches we should find that 
there is an expectation that has not yet come." 
" How pained I was," proceeded the speaker, with 
emphasis, " when I read in The Christian World the 
other day how few there were at the noon prayer- 
meeting in London, and that the requests for 
prayer had dwindled down to such a small number 
compared with what they were when Messrs. Moody 
and Sankey were with us. If it were right to send 
special requests for prayer while the evangelists 



104 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

were here, what has changed the necessity and 
right to send them now, even should there be only 
ten or twenty persons there to plead ? " The second 
speaker declared boldly " that the revival had not 
reached the outside masses of the people." The 
third speaker affirmed that the masses " were left 
to-day just where they were before the evangelists 
came to England." Not only was there a disap- 
pointment at the failure to reach the masses, but 
" where," asked the speaker, "are the conversions 
we expected and talked about ? " " His church was 
situated about midway between the Agricultural 
hall (where the meetings of Moody and Sankey were 
held) and the Bow Eoad hall, and they expected a 
large increase of church membership. They had 
only five applications for admission to the church, 
and three out of the five regularly attended his own 
services in Shoreditch hall. So far as he could 
gather from the churches in the north of London, 
around the Agricultural hall, instead of being an in- 
crease there was an actual decrease in the member- 
ship since the services in that quarter." 

But we need not remain on the other side of the 
sea ; similar testimonials are beginning to come to 
us with regard to the meetings held in our own great 
cities in the east. Living, as I did at the time, in 
Northfield, Mass., where Mr. Moody held his first 
series of meetings after his return to this country, 
I know that the real results achieved there came 
vastly short of what was reported in the papers. 
And I am not aware of any reason why we may 
not suppose that the accounts which we have re- 
ceived of the results of the meetings in Brooklyn, 
Philadelphia, and New York have been equally ex- 
aggerated. But we are not left to conjecture; as 



SUCCESS OF MESSES. MOODY AND SANKEY. 105 

T have said, testimony is beginning to come to us 
with regard to the matter. The New York corre- 
spondent of The Boston Journal writes (as quoted in 
The Christian Register) that a somewhat similar dis- 
appointment as that experienced by the people in 
London is now burdening the hearts of "evangelical" 
Christians in New York and Brooklyn. The first 
Sunday of May is the time for gathering in the 
religious harvest of the winter's work. " Large 
additions were made to the churches last Sabbath," 
writes The Journal correspondent, " hut by no means as 
large or as general as usual. The Hippodrome move- 
ment is responsible for this. That has diverted and 
turned aside church labor, and by its attractiveness 
has made religious work a sort of recreation, where 
crowds, the singing, and the exhilaration have drawn 
attention away from the usual church work in the 
different parishes." The writer then gives reports 
of conversations with representative men of some of 
the largest churches, who confirmed these statements. 
When he said to the leading man of Dr. Talm age's 
Tabernacle, " You were very fortunate in having the 
Moody and Sankey prayer-meetings in your church," 
the reply was : " That may be ; but out of our large 
additions only two have been traced directly to those 
services? 

From such testimonies as these it is not hard to 
draw an answer to our first inquiry : How great has 
the success of the evangelists, whose names have 
been on everybody's lips, really been ? If by success 
we mean notoriety, or the attracting of great crowds, 
then extraordinary success they have certainly 
achieved. But if by success we mean the accom- 
plishment of a work whose results are at all permar 
nent — a work which has really added to the sum 
5* 



106 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

total of the religious achievements in the countries 
where the evangelists have labored, then, as we have 
seen, even according to the testimony of their friends 
and well-known pastors of prominent evangelical 
churches in the immediate neighborhood of the meet- 
ings held, the results attained are more than doubt- 
ful. In other words, it seems very questionable 
whether the number of persons who have been u con- 
verted," and who have joined the various orthodox 
churches of New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and 
Great Britain during the evangelists' labors, has 
really been as great as it would have been if the evan- 
gelists had stayed at home, and the churches had gone 
on in their usual channels of effort. While the amount 
of powder burned and smoke made certainly has 
been very great, the real execution done seems to 
foot up unexpectedly small. This I say on the low 
plane of numbers of converts and church members 
made. But, when we come to step up on a still higher 
plane than that, and question this whole system of 
things, this whole matter of convert making, and 
query whether as a rule people are not quite as 
much harmed as benefited by the operation which is 
commonly called conversion, and whether there are 
not evils incident to all such conversion campaigns 
as Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey have been carrying 
on, w 7 hich are more deep and lasting than the good 
accomplished can possibly be, then the answer to the 
question whether these gentlemen have really suc- 
ceeded in any high or worthy sense comes out into 
very clear light. 

2. But to go forward to our second question : How 
shall we account for such success as they have 
achieved ? 

Of course we are all aware that it was claimed 



SUCCESS OF MESSRS. MOODY AND SANKEY. 107 

from the beginning by the friends of this Moody and 
Sankey movement that its so-called success — that is, 
the crowds that it attracted and the number of so- 
called converts it made — was a proof that it was a 
genuine work of God. Nothing but the power of the 
Holy Ghost, it was confidently asserted, could have 
wrought such results as were seen wrought. The one 
all-sufficient explanation of the whole thing was its 
divine nature. 

For one, I do not think such explanation has any 
validity ; and for what seem to me the strongest rea- 
sons. Any one who has read history at all knows 
that drawing crowds and making converts is one of 
the commonest things in the world ; that it is not 
confined to men whom any of us would call God's 
chosen ; indeed, that many of the men, in both past 
and present, who have had, and now have, the most 
power to draw multitudes after them and make con- 
verts of the same, have been either notoriously bad 
men, or else men advocating exceedingly superstitious 
and harmful doctrines. The Mormon movement has 
had a remarkable success, so far as the number of 
converts it has made is concerned. The Millerite, or 
Second Adventist, movement of thirty or forty years 
ago was very successful in the amount of following 
it got. The Crusades were tremendous revivals, by 
the side of which this movement of Moody and San- 
key is scarcely as a rushlight to the noon sun. Three 
or four years ago a great Soman Catholic revival 
sprung up in France and other countries of Europe, 
accompanied by immense and most imposing j>il- 
grimages to the reputed miracle-working shrines of 
Paray le-Monial and Lourdes. And the papers tell 
us that now great Mohammedan revivals, some of 
them more wonderful than Mr. Moody's, are going on 



108 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

in both India and Arabia. There is a famous revival 
preacher now in Mecca, who draws throngs of follow- 
ers from as far off as Turkey, and northern Africa, 
and Hindostan, including royal personages. His 
converts are said to be numerous, and some so zeal- 
ous and devoted as to throw themselves under the 
hoofs of his horse. 

So that if we are going to argue that a movement 
is of God because it gets crowds of followers and 
converts, we are irresistibly driven by our logic a 
good deal further than our evangelical friends will 
be willing to go, viz. : we are driven to the conclu- 
sion that all these movements that I have mentioned 
— Mormon, Eoman Catholic, and Mohammedan — are 
also, and indeed more still, of God, for they have 
found followers and converts in vast crowds — some 
of them in crowds so great as to sink any of our 
modern Protestant revivals, Moody and Sankey's, or 
any others, quite into insignificance. 

No ! it is clearly not necessary to bring in any su- 
pernatural agency to account for the success achieved 
by our evangelists. If movements greater than 
theirs — Mormon, Mohammedan, and Catholic — can 
be accounted for on purely natural grounds, cer- 
tainly we may, with very good reason, look for natural 
and purely human explanations for all that they 
have accomplished. 

Very well then, definitely, what shall we say the 
secrets of their success, such as it has been, are? 

I think the honesty and sincerity of the men have 
had, unquestionably, something to do with it. Relig- 
ious men are seldom found who give evidence of 
more sincerity than does Mr. Moody. And in these 
days of insincerity that is a good deal. People, as a 
rule, have gone a good way toward pinning their 



SUCCESS OF MESSRS. MOODY AND SAXKEY. 109 

faith to a man, when once they have made up their 
minds that he is really sincere and honest. 

Again, Mr. Moody is a man of warm nature, large 
heart, ready sympathy with the poor and tempted — • 
qualities which attract men to him, as they always 
attract men to whomsoever possesses them. 

Again, he is a man of most extraordinary power to 
believe. He seems to be able really to believe any- 
thing. Apparently, nothing can possibly stagger 
him, or cause him to hesitate a moment about receiv- 
ing it as infallible truth, if only it be found in the 
Bible or falls in with the general line of his ideas. 
He finds no difficulty whatever in believing that the 
whale swallowed Jonah : seemingly, he would find no 
more difficulty, if that were the way the story read, 
in believing that Jonah swallowed the whale. As 
another has said, " He out-Herods all rivals in the 
extent and intensity of his believing not only i the 
old, old story, ' but all the old, old stories of the 
Jewish and Christian Scriptures. Such extraordinary 
aptitude and capacity for believing things has scarce- 
ly been witnessed in our age. Believing is his science, 
his culture, his gospel, his way of salvation, his 
heaven of enjoyment." And now, who does not know 
that there is great power in such ability to believe as 
this ? Whether it is a good or a bad power is not the 
question ; but who doubts that it is a great popular 
power ? Napoleon's firm belief in his Star of Destiny 
unquestionably did much to kindle the faith of 
others in him, and to enable him to hew his way up 
and down Europe and to the throne of France. 
Loyola's and Xavier's mighty and unwavering belief 
in Catholicism doubtless did much to help them make 
their extraordinary conquests for the Mother Church. 

So, Mr. Moody's power of believing is undoubtedly 



110 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

no small part of the secret of his success. The age 
is full of doubt and inquiry. Many, weary with 
inquiry, or, what is much more often the case, afraid 
of inquiry, find great comfort incoming into contact 
with a man who knows nothing about doubt, and 
who simply pushes inquiry out of the way as some- 
thing of the devil; who believes, and believes in- 
tensely, and believes all the while. It is always 
easier to close eyes than to open them. A hundred 
men can always be found to follow one who goes 
forth calling upon men to believe, where ten cannot 
be found to follow one who goes forth bidding men 
investigate. 

Again, Mr. Moody is a man of absolutely tremen- 
dous earnestness. His whole nature and make-up, as 
well as his training, conspire to make him such. 
Physically he is strong and stout. His head large, 
particularly at the base, is set upon a thick, short 
neck, and this upon broad shoulders. His mind is 
keen, practical, intense, narrow. His culture is 
crude; his range of reading very limited. His will 
is imperious. What could such a man be, when he 
had once chosen to devote himself to religion, but a 
zealot ? And a zealot of great power ! A man of 
one burning idea! Most men are weak and vacillat- 
ing, and easily, nay, rather gladly, fall into the lead 
of a man of strong purpose. The very narrowness 
and want of culture of Mr. Moody, and his inability 
to see on many sides of a subject, coupled with his 
great self-confidence and strength of will, conspire to 
make him, though on a low plane, a born leader of 
men. 

Finally, Mr. Moody has certainly great popular 
gifts as a speaker. Though not in the common ac- 
ceptation of the word an orator, yet he speaks always 



SUCCESS OF MESSRS. MOODY AND SANKEY. Ill 

with great fluency, vigor, directness, fervency, power. 
All these traits and characteristics of the man go far 
toward accounting for the excitement which he has 
been able to create since he began his tour of Great 
Britain three years ago. 

But these are not all. Significant as these are, 
they only make up a part ot the full explanation. 
There are at least two other very important agencies 
that I want particularly to speak of. These are, first, 
the music employed, and second, the shrewd business 
management of the meetings, especially in the way 
of advertising them, and securing beforehand the 
enormously powerful backing of the churches. 

First, the music. We often hear it said that it is 
Mr. Sankey's singing more than it is Mr. Moody's 
preaching that draws. But a statement of this kind 
shows a want of appreciation of where the greatest 
power of the music of the Moody and San key meet- 
ings lies. It does not lie in Mr. Sankey's solos. 
These are effective, and contribute not a little to the 
attractiveness of the exercises. And, indeed, I sup- 
pose that we in this country can hardly realize how 
entirely novel a thing they were in Great Britain 
when the evangelists went there, and, therefore, how 
much they must have done, at the outset, to bring 
the two Americans into popular notice. Yet I insist 
that the greatest power of the music of the great 
meetings held has not lain in Mr. Sankey's singing. 
It has lain in the sweeping, surging, irresistible, 
overwhelming singing of the congregations. Do you 
know what power there is in the singing of the 
negroes at the South when, gathered in great congre- 
gation, they all unite with one heart and voice in 
their simple but thrilling choruses'? They will sing 
themselves into ecstasies, so that they scarcely know 



112 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

whether they are in the body or out of the body. 
And you, too, though you have only gone in as an 
indifferent and critical spectator, before }'ou know it 
you too are drawn into the enchanted current, and 
are being borne with strange intoxication on the 
bosom of the wild but wondrous song. Something 
of the same power of i)opular singing some of us 
have witnessed in old-fashioned Methodist revivals. 
The congregation would sing, and swell the stirring 
choruses of their stirring hymns, until it seemed as 
if the roof would rise, and all the people with it ; 
until the emotions of the congregation were stretched 
to the utmost tension, and all felt as if they were 
standing in the very presence of the glories or the 
horrors of the next world. 

Now, Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey have availed 
themselves to an extraordinary degree of the power 
there is in the united singing of large masses to sway 
human feeling. In the first place, they have com- 
piled a collection of hymns and tunes of the most pop- 
ular possible character, almost every hymn having a 
chorus that an audience will quickly catch, and every 
tune being of a kind that will almost sing itself. You 
know how certain songs, like " Home, Sweet Home/' 
or " John Brown's Body," or even " Shoo Fly," have 
power to catch the popular ear, and before any one is 
aware get into everybody's mouth, over the whole 
length and breadth of a country. Moody and Sankey 
succeeded in making up a collection of hymns and 
tunes which had much of that same indescribable 
element of popularity in them. Most of them had al- 
ready become popular in this country, and when taken 
to England they at once became immensely popu- 
lar there. But the musical success which the evan- 
gelists achieved was owing no more to the happy 



SUCCESS OF MESSRS. MOODY AND SANKEY. 113 

selection of songs that tliey made, than it was to 
their skill in getting them before the public. Sankey 
sung them, and sung them with much effect. That 
would go far in introducing them to the public. But 
the evangelists were too shrewd to stop with that. 
They had great numbers printed, the hymns with the 
music, and the hymns in cheap vest-pocket editions 
without the music. And the sale and distribution of 
these were pushed on all hands. Some millions of 
copies, we are told, were scattered throughout Great 
Britain. When the evangelists went to a city to 
hold a series of meetings, pains were taken to get their 
hymn-books into the hands of as many as possible 
of the people of the city, and when the meetings were 
begun not only did Mr. Sankey sing, but he got the 
whole congregation, from the first, singing with him. 
And to do this the more effectually he organized, be- 
fore the meetings begun, great and powerful chorus 
choirs to set the fashion to and lead the congrega- 
tion. 

And now, who does not know the power of such 
singing over the masses of the people who attend 
meetings and find themselves surrounded by it, and 
are borne along on the billows of it, to be well-nigh 
irresistible ? 

A theology which in sober thought a man would 
cast away with loathing, he would find himself before 
he knew it joining in the singing of, with the multi- 
tude ; and finally, through the singing, he would be 
drawn actually to embrace it. I have been in the 
meetings of Moody and Sankey, and found the 
stanchest kind of Unitarians, who believed the whole 
notion of the blood atonement to be false and per- 
nicious, under the bewildering fascinations of the 
place join with fervor in singing such hymns as 



114 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 



and 



" There is a fountain filled with blood 
Drawn from Immanuel's veins/' 

u Jesus paid it all ; all to Him T owe ; 
Sin had left a crimson stain, 
He washed it white as snow." 

I repeat— he who has simply heard Mr. Sankey 
sing knows little about the real power of the music 
of the Moody and Sankey meetings. Only he knows 
that who has himself stood in the midst of the great 
multitude, and that day after day and night after 
night, and felt himself thrilled and awed and borne 
away by the strange power of its mighty choruses. 

But the agency which I am convinced has been the 
most powerful of all in securing the success of the 
Moody and Sankey movements of both England and 
this country is the shrewd business management 
which has everywhere been displayed, particularly 
in the direction of advertising, and securing before- 
hand the tremendous backing of the churches. Said 
Mr. Farrington, in a letter from England to The 
Christian Register, with reference to Mr. Moody, 
when in the height of his work there : " One com- 
mand, 'Do not sound a trumpet before thee,' is not 
enforced at his coming. For months before his ad- 
vent here (in Manchester) the trumpets blew daily. 
Ministers taught their flocks that the Lord was com- 
ing to do a great work here. Daily noon prayer-meet- 
ings were organized, in which the prayers were 
advertisements of this Moody who should come, and 
in which the hymns were rehearsals of the choruses 
which to Sankey's solos would be sung. So it is every- 
where. They go to London in March, and as early 
as last December meetings of preparation were or- 
ganized. The whole thing is worked up with all the 



SUCCESS OF MESSRS. MOODY AND SANKEY. 115 

system of a political campaign." " This is nothing 
against it/ 7 continues Mr.Farrington; " but it explains 
the mystery of the eager, anxious throng. Just a 
day or two ago this great evangelist, who relies so 
much, not upon an arm of flesh, but upon the power 
of God, refused to go to Sheffield, because there had 
been a break in the ministerial organization which 
was there to work from house to house to make his 
path straight and his crowd great before him. This 
was very sensible of him. But one does not see how 
it connects with the cant about the pretense that this 
is all a sudden and wonderful outpouring of God." 

The papers tell us that Gladstone expressed the 
opinion a while ago that the Moody and Sankey meet- 
ings could have had no considerable success, u un- 
less sustained with the same energy and pertinacity 
of wholesale advertising, which, until quite recently, 
was better known to the inventors of certain de- 
scriptions of blacking and certain kinds of medicine." 
Pretty strong words for the orthodox ex-premier. 
And it seems to have been the same in our Eastern 
cities since the evangelists came to this country. 
The advertising has been enormous. Barnum never 
began to keep his shows so persistently and con- 
stantly before the public as were the Hippodrome 
meetings, from first to last, in one way and another, 
kept before the people of New York. 

Who can estimate the influence of all this in 
giving them the success they had? And as to the 
backing of the churches, too, who can estimate the 
power of that ? Why, let all the so-called evangelical 
churches of any great city combine on anything ; es- 
pecially let them combine, after having worked them- 
selves up into expectancy and fervor, by weeks and 
months of preparatory effort, and what may we not 



116 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

expect to see accomplished? The wonder is, with 
such advertising, such working up of the ground, 
and such backing, not that our evangelists drew 
such crowds, but rather that they did not draw 
larger ; not that they created so great an excitement 
as they did, but rather that they did not create a 
greater still. When a mountain labors, you have a 
right to expect that something more than a mouse 
will be brought forth. 

Just as these gentlemen have refused in the past 
to go to any place to labor, either in Great Britain 
or this country, uuless they could beforehand receive 
the pledge of the entire evangelical influence, so they 
propose to refuse to go anywhere in the future where 
they cannot receive like support. They give promise 
that they will come to Chicago. But, if they are to 
do so, the time from now till they come must be oc- 
cupied in preparation for their coming ; and when 
they get here, all the evangelical ministers must give 
up their evening meetings for thirty days, and make 
their churches so many feeders to the central meet- 
ings and work. And to this the churches of this 
city, through their ministers at lower Farwell Hall 
last Monday afternoon, pledged themselves, even the 
broad-minded and liberal Mr. Bartlett, of Plymouth 
church, going so far as to say that u there was no 
church in Chicago but what would be controlled by 
Mr. Moody, and do as he wished during the meet- 
ings." And yet, all these things being so, when Mr. 
Moody and Mr. Sankey come here, and the meetings 
begin, and crowds flock to them, and conversions 
begin to be reported, we shall hear the cry all over 
the city and country, " See what a work the Lord is 
doing ! " And infidels and skeptics will be triumph- 
antly pointed to the success achieved, and bidden 



SUCCESS OF MESSRS. MOODY AND SANKEY. 117 

to see in that the irrefutable proof that the move- 
ment is of God. 

And I confess T am disposed to think myself that 
it will be a work of God ; and that this whole Moody 
and Sankey excitement, from its beginning, has been 
a work of God. But not for the same reasons or in 
the same sense that my good evangelical friends 
think them works of God. If God "makes the 
wrath of men to praise him," so does he also, in the 
end, I think, make the foolishness of men, and the 
blind zeal of men, and the low, unworthy ways of 
working of men, to praise him. 

" God's ways seem dark, but soon or late 
They touch the shining hills of day." 

You know it was the great revivals that swept 
over ]Sew England under Whitefield that sowed the 
seed of Unitarianism and Universalism in America. 
So let us be sure that if this kind of work which Mr. 
Moody and Mr. Sankey are doing in this country 
continues long, and spreads far, it will sow such 
seeds of liberalism in the United States as have never 
been sown. Revivalism, based upon such principles, 
and especially upon such theology as our modern re- 
vivalism is based upon, is a kind of thing from which, 
sooner or later, there must be a reaction ; and a reac- 
tion, too, powerful and far-reaching, just in the degree 
that the revivalism has been powerful and far-reaching. 

Nothing is more certain than that this age of en- 
lightenment is not going back permanently to Moody 
doctrines and Moody methods. There may be ed- 
dies in the stream of the world's progress, but the 
great stream will move irresistibly on in spite of all. 
Advance, and not retrogression ; better things, and 
not worse, are the destiny alike of our civilization 
and our religion. 

Chicago, June, 1876. 



THE MOODY AND SANKEY REVIVAL AS AN 
INSTRUMENTALITY FOR "REACHING 

THE MASSES." 



" Tlie kingdom of God cometu not with outward show." — 
Luke xvii. 20. 

Perhaps there is nothing for which the revival 
meetings of Messrs. Moody and Sankey have been 
so generally commended as for the fact that they 
have been so successful in " reaching the masses.'* 
Large numbers of persons, who really have little 
sympathy with the kind of thing that these meetings 
stand for, have yet been led to refrain from opposi- 
tion, and even to lend their influence in favor of 
the meetings, because they have said to themselves, 
" These revivalists seem to have a great power to get 
hold of a class of people that do not appear to be 
reached in other ways." 

The more active and ardent friends of the revi- 
valists have urged from the beginning, with great 
persistency and unction, the claim that the "masses" 
were being " reached," as almost never before in the 
history of this country or England; and a systema- 
tic effort seems to have been made, from the first, to 
create the impression generally that, of course, all 
who were friends of the masses would support the 
meetings on this ground. 

I ask you to join with me in as careful an exami- 
nation as we can make, in a single half hour, of this 
matter of " reaching the masses." For I freely con- 
fess that I for one am convinced that there is abun- 



REACHING THE MASSES. 119 

dant room for investigation, for light, for clearer 
thinking than has usually been done on this sub- 
ject. It seems to me a matter really of astonish- 
ment (and I think that future generations will more 
and more be astonished at it) that our thoughtful 
religious men of this country and England should 
have taken so much for granted in this thing ; should 
have made so little effort as they seem to have made 
to get down to the bottom of the matter, and to find 
out what are the necessary conditions of all reaching 
the masses that amounts to anything. 

In the first place, with reference to this work of 
Messrs. Moody and Sankey, it is to be observed, 
that the congregations that have been drawn together 
have turned out to be, to nothing like the extent 
predicted, congregations of persons who could not 
otherwise be reached by religious influences ; instead 
of that they have been really made up, in large part, 
of already professing Christians who flocked to the 
meetings to enjoy a season of religious dissipation. 
Mr. Moody probably tried earnestly to prevent this. 
But he does not seem to have been more than 
partially successful, and in some places he seems to 
have been positively unsuccessful. So that, on the 
very threshold of our inquiry concerning the Moody 
and Sankey meetings as an instrumentality for reach- 
ing the masses, we are met by the fact that u the eager, 
anxious throng, which moves with busy haste along" 
to find a place within the great halls where the evan- 
gelists speak and sing, is made up in large part not 
of the masses at all, if by the masses we mean people 
who are not regular church-goers. But the newspaper 
press, in reporting the meetings, have brought out 
this feature of them so clearly and often that I need 
only mention it. 



120 ORTHODOXY AND EEYIVALISM. 

What I wish especially to do is to inquire what 
is the value of such meetings as those of Moody 
and Sankey, even on the supposition that they are 
attended by non-professors of religion in as large 
numbers as any one could wish ? 

It would be scarcely possible for an expression to 
be more ambiguous in meaning than is the expression 
" reaching the masses.' 7 There are a thousand dif- 
ferent ways of reaching the masses, and a thousand 
different objects that one may have in view in reach- 
ing them. 

They may be reached for a good object in a good 
way, or for a good object in a bad way, or for a bad 
object in a bad way, or for a bad object in what 
may be a measurably good way. So that a man 
must know a great many things before he can de- 
cide whether reaching the masses be a good or an 
evil. 

Beaching the masses is by no means a hard thing 
to do, if one isn't particular how he does it. If one 
will only go down upon the level of the masses, do 
things and set them doing tilings which they like 
to see done and do, talk things which they like to 
hear talked, and, generally, interest himself in those 
things which they are interested in — seeking only to 
amuse, move, or excite — he will have a light task. 
That is to say, if, being a political speaker, he will 
make a free use of buncombe, funny stories, low wit, 
and invective; or if, being a theater manager, he 
will keep his stage well supplied with comedy, sen- 
sational plays, spectacular scenery, ballet dancing, 
and such kind of things ; or if, being a newspaper 
editor, he will fill his columns liberally with gossip, 
reports of crime and scandal, exciting stories, and 
the like ; or if, being a preacher, he will bring his 



REACHING THE MASSES. 121 

preaching and methods of religious work down to 
the same low level, he will find his road to his goal 
of reaching the masses (if he has any talent at all) a 
comparatively short and direct one. Of course he 
will ! because he has come down to the plane on 
which they like to be reached. Men like to hear 
stories, they like to be amused, they like to have 
their imaginations played upon, they like to be ex- 
cited and aroused and made to feel — little matter 
whether the cause of the excitement and emotion be 
a play in a theater or a preacher telling a story 
about a dying child ; and the man who sets out to 
reach them on that level is doing scarcely a more 
difficult thing than throwing himself into a current 
to float with it. 

But the question immediately presents itself for 
consideration, whenever we begin to talk about any 
such kind of reaching the masses as that, What does 
it all amount to when we get them so reached ? True, 
the editor and theater manager make money by it — 
the thing they are after ; and the politician gets no- 
toriety and votes by it — the things he is after ; and 
the religionist draws crowds, and gets up excitements 
in communities by it. But the masses themselves, 
what better off are they than they were before they 
were reached, or than they would have been if they had 
never been reached at all, according to that manner 
of reaching people ? That is the important question. 

1 apprehend that any reaching of the masses, which 
is worth the serious attention of persons whose aim 
is to accomplish lasting good, must proceed upon a 
radically different principle from this. The question 
of the really wise man, in all his efforts to reach the 
masses, will be, not what the masses desire, but 
what they need ; not what they at present respond 



122 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

to, feel an interest in, can appreciate, have attained 
to the level of; but what it is desirable that they 
should respond to, feel an interest in, appreciate, 
attain to the level of. He will not stoop to the level 
of the masses in any such sense as so many others 
stoop to the level of the masses. On the other hand, 
he will resolutely refuse to do any such stooping. 
He knows that the sun is able to lift the waters of the 
sea because it (the sun) is above the sea. He knows 
that the intercourse of the parent with his child is 
able to lift the child up continually into higher and 
higher intelligence and strength, because the parent 
is above the child in intelligence and strength. He 
knows that a school, in which all the teachers should 
be on a level with the scholars in knowledge and 
discipline, would of necessity fail to accomplish any 
good. 

Therefore, when he sees the masses ignorant, he 
does not say, "I will go to them clothed in an igno- 
rance as great as their own." When he sees the 
masses steeped in bigotry and superstition, particu- 
larly religious bigotry and superstition, he does not 
say, "I will approach them with doctrines and 
ideas as superstitious and narrow as theirs.' 7 When 
he sees them addicted to fanaticism, to running 
when they are not sent, to sentimentalism, to harm- 
ful excitements, to low, unregulated, unworthy en- 
thusiasms, he does not say, "I will go to them to 
take advantage of these, to throw myself into the 
current that is running, to add fuel to the fires of 
their fanaticism and excitements, their unworthy 
and unregulated enthusiasms.' 7 Bather he says, u I 
will none of these things." Wishing to reach the 
masses, he wishes so to reach them as to do them 
good 5 and because he wishes so to reach them as to 



REACHING THE MASSES. 123 

do them good, he will forego all methods and means 
which promise a success which, though immediate, is 
worth nothing when it comes ; and give his attention 
and strength solely to those things that conduce to 
results which, while they may be distant, and to be 
attained only slowly and without much outward 
show, yet when they are attained are substantial, 
enduring, valuable. 

Wishing to reach the masses so as to do them 
good, he will endeavor to reach them, not from below 
to draw them downward ; nor yet from their own 
level, to leave them no higher than when he began; 
but from above, so that the result of his efforts may 
be to draw them upward, to in every way higher 
and better things. 

In what way must he go to work in order to ac- 
complish this that he wishes ? Not by adopting any 
short cuts or quack processes. There is no " royal 
road v or "lightning express trains" to virtue, to in- 
tegrity, to honor, to moral or spiritual attainment, 
to largeness and ripeness of manhood, to sweetness 
and strength of character, to true religion, any more 
than there is to knowledge. Therefore will he only 
deceive himself and others, and do harm rather than 
good, if he resort to anything so superficial and 
short-lived as mere appeals to men's emotions and 
attempts under the influence of excited feelings to 
produce spasmodic action of the will ; whether men 
call these emotional excitements and spasmodic will- 
efforts " professing religion " or " being converted " 
or anything else. He must put utterly and forever 
away all such ideas as that his work is one that can 
possibly be accomplished in a single evening, or 
under the heat and nervous tension of a great reli- 
gious meeting, or that any transient emotional ex- 



124 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

perience or single action of the will can probably 
have any large or controlling part in it. 

If he would reach the masses in a way really and 
permanently to elevate them, he must rather set in 
operation agencies which shall begin to exert their 
influence upon people in as early life as possible, 
and especially, continue for terms of years; and 
which shall aim at nothing short of slowly creating 
intelligence ; carefully forming habits of thought ; 
patiently nourishing sentiments that are pure and 
high; weaving the very structure of the minds of 
those dealt with, full of ideas and views of things 
that are true and ennobling; slowly and silently 
building up character. Anything which undertakes 
to draw attention away from these things, or to sub- 
stitute something else to any degree in the place of 
them, he must have nothing to do with, knowing it 
to be an enemy of the work which he has at heart. 

These, it seems to me, are the principles which the 
truly wise man will act upon, and the methods which 
he will employ in all his undertakings to reach the 
masses. 

And why should he not act upon these principles 
and employ these methods ? Are they not philosophi- 
cal ? Are they not scientific ? Do they not harmonize 
with the best wisdom that comes down to us from the 
past f Are they not pre-eminently the principles, and, 
bo far as changed times and conditions of society will 
allow, pre-eminently the methods, of Jesus ? 

What are these masses that are to be reached? 
Are they not beings of manifold wants, slow growth, 
complex nature ! Have they not a physical nature 
and an intellectual nature, as well as a religious ? 
Is not their intellectual nature dependent for its 
healthful development largely upon their physical ? 



REACHING THE MASSES. 125 

And is not their religious nature dependent for its 
healthful development largely upon both their in- 
tellectual and physical natures? Isn't that gospel 
which conies with its loaf to the physically hungry 
of them, or its gift of valuable knowledge to the 
starving minds among them, as truly, in its place, a 
gospel from heaven, as that which comes bearing a 
purely religious message ? Far too long has Chris- 
tendom been carrying on the experiment of trying to 
lift men up through their religious nature alone. In 
the nature of the case it is impossible that the ex- 
periment should succeed more than to a limited and 
very meager extent. The entire man must be taken 
hold of. If we pay our whole attention to perfect- 
ing a man's body and bodily conditions, we get at 
best but a splendid animal. If we pay our whole at- 
tention to his mind, we get at best an intellectual 
giant, who is about as likely to be a devil as any- 
thing else. If we pay our whole attention to his re- 
ligious nature, we are well-nigh certain to turn him 
out a mere bigot and a fanatic. 

So that, in the case of a single man, when we un- 
dertake the work of lifting him up toward perfection 
of manhood and fullness of life, we undertake not a 
one-sided but a many-sided, not a simple but a very 
complex thing. What shall we say then when our 
work is the elevation not of a single person but of a 
great aggregate of persons, with their endless variety 
of constitutions, capacities, habits, passions, inclina- 
tions, weaknesses, circumstances of life? Are we 
going to be able to do it by means of any one instru- 
mentality ? On the contrary, the agencies we must 
employ, and the channels in which we must work, 
must be as various as human needs. For those 
whose wants are primarily physical, we must work 



126 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

in one way, for those whose wants are primarily in- 
tellectual, or social, or moral, or spiritual, our work 
must be in quite different ways. Our work for the 
child cannot employ the same instrumentalities as 
our work for the adult. Our work for the already 
vicious cannot run in the same grooves as our work 
for those whom we would simply prevent from fall- 
ing into vice. Our work for the poor must aim to 
help them so far as possible out of their poverty ; our 
work for the ignorant must aim to dispel their igno- 
rance ; our work for young men and women without 
homes in a city full of temptations must aim at sup- 
plying the place of homes, and giving them social 
helps. And so on. As there is no single panacea 
which can cure all the ills which flesh is heir to, so 
there is no single panacea which can cure all the 
evils of a highly complex society. The work must 
go on in many lines and under many forms, though 
all governed by the same general principles. As a 
rule the nearer to nature it is, and the more silent 
and continuous, the more really effective it will be. 

Such reaching of the masses as shall be at all ade- 
quate to the needs of the times must include, I ap- 
prehend, many things that are not even dreamed of 
in the revivalist philosophy. I apprehend that it 
must include, and include not merely incidentally but 
primarily and centrally, all such w^ork as founding 
popular free libraries ; opening, by the thousand, free 
and easily accessible reading, club, and amusement 
rooms ; making social provision of various kinds for 
young men and women, particularly of the class that 
are limited in means and are adrift in the world ; 
getting in operation numerous and varied courses of 
interesting and valuable lectures at little or no cost ; 
circulating broad, liberal, healthful, instructive, in- 



REACHING THE MASSES. 127 

spiring literature in the form of tracts, pamphlets, 
papers, and books ; establishing and carrying on in- 
dustrial schools ; making systematic and persistent 
effort to gather and keep in the day-schools such 
children as are now little else than vagrants and 
truants ; multiplying and building up into efficiency, 
in all parts of the country, such institutions as the 
Chicago Athenaeum and the IsTew York Cooper In- 
stitute, where all classes of people, no matter how 
poor they may be, can educate themselves ; founding 
hospitals and institutions of beneficence of every 
kind; organizing associations to help the poor to 
cheap homes, and to comfortable and healthful tene- 
ments; forming co-operative associations, and asso- 
ciations to carry on industrial operations, in such 
ways as shall insure work of some kind, at some 
wages (even though low), to the poor at all times. 

Such efforts to reach the masses have a look of 
adequacy about them ; are sweet and wholesome ; 
have in them no taint of fanaticism ; do not debauch 
the public mind; are practical; go down to the roots 
of things. 

I do not mean to deny that large numbers of per- 
sons who favor Mr. Moody engage, to a greater or 
less extent, in such works and undertakings as these. 
But if they are true disciples of their Master, they 
engage in them as very secondary matters. With Mr. 
Moody the overshadowingly important thing is none 
of these. And this is what I object to. I hold that 
these are all of the utmost importance, and that to 
overshadow and cast them into the far background, 
to again and again and perpetually and with the ut- 
most fervor call public attention away from them, as 
his preaching does call attention away from them, to 
something which has to do only with the emotions, 



128 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

or at most with a temporary excitement of the will, 
cannot but be deeply harmful. 

Revivals are unquestionably good, if only the 
things revived are the right things. If, in the place 
of revivals of emotionalism and irrational, old-time 
notions of soul-saving, we could have revivals of 
these thiugs which I have been mentioning, these 
things which take hold on the very roots of society, 
and go to the very springs of human influence and 
character, then the more revivals the better. And 
why not have revivals of just these things ? Why 
should not our evangelists, if they care to effect the 
deepest and most lasting good in society, go forth to 
awaken such kind of revivals ? Why not the whole 
Christian forces of great cities join hands to inau- 
gurate new movements to reach the masses accord- 
ing to these rational and really effective methods ? 
Does any thoughtful man doubt that the amount of 
good done would be vastly greater than can possibly 
be done by the popular revivals of our day ? Sup- 
pose the vast amount of money, time, and work ex- 
pended in the Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and New York 
meetings of Mr. Moody, last winter, had been ex- 
pended in wisely planned enterprises of popular edu- 
cation, beneficence, and reform ; suppose that all the 
churches of those cities, instead of joining in Mr. 
Moody's meetings, had united as thoroughly and 
earnestly for a tremendous wrestle of one, two, or 
three solid months with the ignorance, the squalor, 
the truancy, the intemperance, the vice, the crime, 
the bad sanitary and social conditions of those cities . 
does any one doubt as to the value of what might 
thus have been accomplished, compared with what 
actually was accomplished? Or suppose that Mr. 
Moody, when he comes to Chicago to begin his cam- 



REACHING THE MASSES. 129 

paign of three months here, instead of undertaking 
a work of sensational religious revivalism, could 
unite the whole Christian influence of the city in a 
great movement, say to place the Athenaeum upon 
its feet, giving it suitable apartments and endow- 
ments, and fitting it to do the magnificent work that 
it is calculated to do for untold thousands of our 
people for all time to come; or, if not this, then a 
movement say to open accessible, commodious, and 
pleasant rooms in all parts of the city (possibly in 
connection with all the leading churches of the city), 
where young men could go evenings to read the 
latest papers, magazines, and books, to meet friends, 
to chat, to play billiards or chess, to hear and take 
part in music, to join in social and literary clubs, to 
listen to cheap but good lectures, in a word, to find 
regular and continuous entertainment, instruction, 
and good society, and be saved from the thousand 
bad social influences of a great city ; or, if neither 
of these, then perhaps a movement to establish, or 
enlarge, or make more efficient, institutions of bene- 
ficence of some of the many kinds that are so much 
needed for the benefit of the poor, the sick, the crip- 
pled, the aged, orphan children, children growing up 
in ignorance, poverty, and crime, children of delicate 
constitutions who need country air during the hot 
summers, but whose parents cannot afford the ex- 
pense of sending them away ! There is no end of 
worthy objects urging themselves upon the attention 
of Christian people, all of them of a character to 
reach the masses in the most direct, life-giving, and 
lasting way, and all of them full to the brim with 
just such salvation as Jesus cared and labored for, 
and as the world most deeply needs. 

Suppose then, I say ? that Mr. Moody, when he 
21* 



130 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

comes here, instead of undertaking the old pro- 
gramme of emotional excitement and theological 
soul-saving, should set himself earnestly to work in 
some of these channels of rational beneficence, and 
that he could succeed in uniting the two hundred 
Protestant churches of the city in a three months' 
campaign of energetic work with him in these chan- 
nels, using no more time or money or energy of mind 
and heart than will be expended in the proposed 
three months' revival meetings, does any one doubt 
that the kingdom of heaven would make such an ad- 
vance in Chicago as was never known ? And then, 
in addition to this, suppose that, a year later, when 
another winter comes and the churches of the city 
begin to talk about another revival, they should de- 
cide to make that revival also a revival of practical 
instead of theoretical religion ; and that, a year later 
still, they should make the same decision ; and that 
every winter for even a single ten years they should 
turn all the enormous aggregate of the energies, that 
they are in the habit of spending in revivals, into 
works of x^ractical good-doing; now one, until they 
had got that well on its feet 5 now another, until they 
had assured the success of that ; now another still, 
until the whole city was thoroughly aroused to sym- 
pathy and support of that, and so on ! Can there 
be any question as to the magnificence of the results 
which the end of the first decade of the new century 
would witness ? Can there be any question as to 
the reality and value and permanence of this kind of 
reaching the masses ? Can any one imagine the 
Christian people of Chicago, after this experience, 
consenting to go back again to the present methods 
of Mr. Moody and the revivalists ? consenting to use 
up every winter the best religious energies of the 



REACHING THE MASSES. 131 

whole year in efforts to beat up the public mind into 
a religious froth ? 

Some of us have had some experience of the popu- 
lar revivalistic methods of reaching the masses in 
smaller towns and country villages. Here the evils 
that grow out of these methods are even more ap- 
parent than in the large cities. The most ungodly 
and hardened, the most spiritually, morally, mentally, 
and socially desolate and poverty-stricken commu- 
nities I have myself ever seen, have been villages 
and towns, in both the East and the West, which 
have been in the habit of being swept every two or 
three winters, for a long series of years, by a " revi- 
val." A community has only about so much mental, 
social, or religious energy. If this be consumed in a 
tremendous, convulsive religious movement of many 
weeks' duration in the winter, what can be left for 
the rest of the year, for other religious work of calmer 
kinds, and for individual mental culture and general 
social life ? Contrast a village which pours its efforts 
to reach the masses into these revivalistic channels, 
with another village no larger, no more prosperous 
in material things, no better situated, having no dis- 
coverable advantage over it except that the latter 
has long been blessed with broader and more ad- 
vanced ideas with regard to these matters of which 
I am speaking. Its people long ago saw (and have 
ever since acted accordingly) that the true way to 
save their community, and build up the kingdom of 
heaven among them, was to pay attention to their 
common schools ; make provision for advanced edu- 
cation, by maintaining a good academy or high 
school ; establish a good town library ; organize and 
keep in vigorous life lyceums and literary clubs of 
some kind ; make as much as possible of general 



132 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

social life ; plan for religious work that should not 
exhaust itself in a winter revival spasm, but should 
spread itself evenly over the year, filling it all with 
instruction, encouragement, calm and thoughtful 
regular worship, and systematic religious culture, 
works of charity, every sweet and helpful thing. 
Could anything be more convincing, as to the true 
way to reach the masses so as really and permanent- 
ly to benefit them, than such a contrast as this? 
And such a contrast is not a fancy picture. As I 
myself am acquainted with many villages of the 
former kind, so also am I with not a few of the lat- 
ter. Indeed, no one who has been abroad over the 
country much, with his eyes open to social and re- 
ligious phenomena, can have failed to observe again 
and again such contrasts, more or less distinctly 
marked. It is said, upon what seems to be good au- 
thority, that that man who was perhaps the greatest 
of American revivalists, Charles G. Finney, in travel- 
ing later over the field of his wonderfully successful 
revival labors of forty years ago in Central New York, 
expressed a serious doubt whether the work accom- 
plished there, taken in the sum total of its results, 
had been good. And it is well known that the great 
President Edwards, as the result of years of study 
of the influence of revivals (particularly a powerful 
one which under his own ministry had visited his vil- 
lage of Northampton), declared his serious distrust 
of all such methods of religious work, confessing his 
grave doubts whether " the greater part of supposed 
converts give reason by their conversation to sup- 
pose that they continue converts," and expressing 
his growing conviction that permanent and healthful 
advance can come to religion only through more 
calm and natural means. 



BEACHING THE MASSES. 133 

Is it not time that the ardent admirers of Mr. Moody 
and his work were heeding some of these things ? 

Does any one say that criticism upon methods 
adopted by men, as honest and earnestly desirous of 
doing good as Mr. Moody, is ungracious? I reply, 
Unquestionably fault-finding for fault-finding's sake, 
or criticism for mere criticism's sake, is ungracious, 
and something which, especially in connection with 
serious matters, is to be condemned. But, if it be 
maintained that because a man simply means well, 
and does what he does in the name of religion, he 
must therefore be left free to adopt any extravagant 
and false ideas or harmful methods he pleases, and 
no one must call anything he does in question, then 
I emphatically demur. Who does not know that 
many of the worst evils that afflict society come at 
the hands of men who are earnest and mean well ? 
And that not a few come wearing the name of reli- 
gion? The fact is, we live in an age of advance, be- 
cause we live in an age of criticism. And when we 
fence off any department of thought or work, and say 
that thoughtful and candid criticism has no place 
there, we simply doom that department of thought or 
work (all the same whether it be religious, or other) 
to stagnation and inefficiency, if not to supersti- 
tion. If I criticise Mr. Moody's or any other man's 
religious teachings or ways of work, it is because 
I desire something better. With all my soul do I 
w r ant the masses to be reached. I am unwilling to 
admit that Mr. Moody can want this one whit more 
earnestly than I do. Indeed, it is the depth of my 
desire in this direction that makes me lament, as I 
do lament, the fact that so large a part of the Chris- 
tian public are satisfied with anything which seems 
to me so crude, so superficial, so inadequate, so rad- 



134 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

ically opposed to all true principles of reaching the 
masses (for any purposes of permanently benefit- 
ing thein), as this whole revival work seems to me 
to be. 

When one realizes how hard it is at the best to get 
the public mind imbued with any enlightened ideas of 
the real laws and principles of human progress, how 
can he but lament to see the meager advance that is 
being made subjected to such periodical set-backs 
as these which the evangelists give us ? For, can 
any thoughtful man conceive it possible for a com- 
munity to pass through a series of Mr. Moody's 
meetings without finding at the end that the effect 
has been seriously to confuse popular ideas of men- 
tal, but especially of moral and spiritual education ; 
and to obscure men's vision with regard to the whole 
matter of how it is that human beings can be really 
lifted up and made more of, and how progress and 
improvement can really be secured in society ? 

And when one reflects how large and grand a work 
the work of really reaching the masses in enlight- 
ened, effective, and lasting ways is, and how long it 
must take to accomplish it, even with ail the help 
possible to be obtained, how can he help asking with 
profound sorrow why it is that so much of the best 
devotion and energy of Christendom must be di- 
verted every year into channels that lead rather 
aw^ay from than toward the end desired ? 

Says Mr. Euskin, in his first volume of Oxford Lec- 
tures, " When any of you go abroad (on the conti- 
nent of Europe), observe and consider the meaning 
of the sculptures and paintings, which, of every rank 
in art, and in every chapel and cathedral, and by 
every mountain-path, recall the hours, and represent 
the agonies, of the Passion of Christ; and try to 



REACHING THE MASSES. 135 

form some estimate of the efforts that have been 
made, by the four arts of eloquence, music, painting, 
and sculpture, since the twelfth century, to wring 
out of the hearts of women the last drops of pity 
that could be excited for this merely physical agony. 
# * * Try to conceive the quantity of time, and 
of excited and thrilling emotion, which have been 
wasted by the tender and delicate women of Chris- 
tendom during these last six hundred years, in thus 
picturing to themselves, under the influence of such 
imagery, the bodily pain, long since past, of One 
Person. # # # And then try to estimate what 
might have been the better results for the righteous- 
ness and felicity of mankind, if these same women 
had been taught the deep meaning of the last words 
that were ever spoken by their Master to those who 
ministered to him of their substance, c Daughters of 
Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for your chil- 
dren ; ? if they had been taught to measure with 
their pitiful thoughts the tortures of battle-fields ; the 
slowly consuming plagues of death in the starv- 
ing children and wasted age, of the innumerable 
desolate those battles left; — nay, in our own life of 
peace, the agony of unnurtured, untaught, unhelped 
creatures, awaking at the grave's edge to know how 
they should have lived ; and the worse pain of those 
whose existence not the ceasing of it is death ; those 
to whom the cradle was a curse, and for whom the 
words they cannot hear, l ashes to ashes,' are all that 
they have ever received of benediction." 

Friends, are these words of Mr. Buskin startling? 
But who does not feel the terribly keen edge of their 
truth ? Is it not true that Europe, during the past 
six centuries, has expended in mere sentimental re- 
ligious emotionalism, in the one single direction 



136 0KTH0D0XY AND KEVIVALISM. 

which Mr. Euskin mentions, an amount of energy of 
mind and heart which, guided in rational and proper 
channels, would have transformed measureless ig- 
norance into knowledge, prevented untold crime, 
dried up rivers of human tears, and glorified God by 
blessing the race to an extent that we can scarcely 
conceive ? 

And yet, w r ho of us may presume to judge our 
brethren across the sea in this matter ? For are not 
a majority of the professedly Christian people of this 
country accustomed to do habitually what amounts 
to the very same thing ? Do they not regularly and 
systematically spend much of the cream of their 
energies of mind and heart in revivals and theologi- 
cal emotionalism ; thus leaving themselves of neces- 
sity just so much less to put into works of education, 
charity, philanthropy, and reform? 

I press the question, Who can measure the mag- 
nificent results for good that might have been ac- 
complished if the time and money, and especially if 
the immense energy of mind and heart that have 
been expended in connection with Mr. Moody's meet- 
ings in England and this country, not to say the 
hundreds and thousands of other revival meetings 
conducted by other men, had been turned into chan- 
nels of practical usefulness such as I have enumer- 
ated ; had been devoted (instead of to the produc- 
tion of mere emotions and spasmodic will-efforts) to 
such reaching of the masses as instructs the igno- 
rant, provides for the wants of the helpless and un- 
fortunate, alleviates pain and suffering, cures the ills 
of poverty, dries up human sorrow, lays hold of 
every instrumentality in its power to lift society up 
into better sanitary conditions, better social and 
even pecuniary conditions, larger intelligence, truer 



BEACHING THE MASSES. 137 

views of life, more rational religion, nobler manhood 
and womanhood ? 

Oh ! when there is everywhere so much ignorance 
to be dispelled, so many human wrongs to be 
righted, so many degrading conditions of human so- 
ciety to be improved, it is pitiful that any of us 
should be so well content with firing religious rockets 
and building religious bonfires ! 

Great Christian Church ! whenever thou art tempt- 
ed to say, " Go to ! I will invite a famous evange- 
list, and stir up myself to reach the masses by 
sounding a trumpet before me and holding a great 
revival meeting ; w first go and write above thy pulpit 
where thy famous evangelist is to stand, in letters 
which all the crowds can read, " The Kingdom of 
God cometh not with observation : neither shall they 
say, Lo here ! or Lo there ! for behold, the Kingdom 
of God is within you." "Pure religion and unde- 
filed before God and the Father is this: To visit the 
fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep 
one's self unspotted from the world." " Not every 
one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into 
the Kingdom of Heaven ; but he that doeth the will 
of my Father who is in Heaven." 

Chicago, August, 1876. 



THE IDEAL CHURCH. 



lt Neither do men put new wine into old bottles ; else the bot- 
tles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish ; 
but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are pre- 
served."— Matt, ix. 17. 

We have here suggested a tli ought of vital and 
perpetual importance in connection with the building 
up of the institutions of religion. In the past history 
of Christianity, a great deal of harm has undoubtedly 
come from overlooking it. It needs to come into a 
great deal clearer recognition than perhaps it has 
yet reached anywhere. New life must have new 
forms of outward expression and embodiment. To 
some extent this is true of the lowest forms of life. 
The tiny germ of wheat, as it starts from the soil in 
spring, is quite different in form from the half-grown 
or full-grown wheat stalk. The hundreds of little 
elm trees that came up in my garden last spring 
and summer, with their single pair of leaves 
for a long time constituting almost the entire tree, 
were very different in form from the elms which 
would have developed from these infant things in 
twenty or forty years. So, too, in the human being ; 
the life, as it continues on from birth, forms for itself 
or associates with itself a growing and ever-changing 
body. The body of the man looks very different, 
and is very different, from the body of the infant or 
the boy. 



THE IDEAL CHURCH. 139 

But the principle I wish to trace is much more dis- 
tinctly seen as we come to look at life in its wider 
and less individual forms. When we come to insti- 
tutions, it appears very clearly. A new kind of 
social life requires new forms and outward appurte- 
nances of living. As men, in the progress of civili- 
zation, advance from polygamy to monogamy, and 
the family, as we know it, consisting of one father 
and one mother and their children, comes to be 
recognized as the unit, and in some sort the sacred 
unit of society, very many other forms and appurte- 
nances and surroundings of outward society must be 
changed from what they were under the old order, 
to harmonize with the new. Or, as men advance 
from a life of hunters to a life of shepherds, or from 
a life of shepherds to a life of agriculturists, or 
from a purely agricultural to a partly or wholly 
commercial or manufacturing or city life, the change 
expresses itself or embodies itself in great numbers 
of changes of external kinds in reference to all the 
institutions and appliances of society. Ever the new 
life must have, as it were, a new body to house itself in. 

Nowhere, perhaps, is this more noticeable than in 
connection with political institutions. In early and 
rude conditions of society, when men are ruled by a 
brave and powerful chief, political institutions are a 
very different thing from what they necessarily be- 
come later, as the authority of the chief gives place to 
that of a king; and then, later still, when the au- 
thority of the king gives place to that of a king 
and council ; and then, later still, with the still fur- 
ther advance of society, when the king passes off 
the stage, and the ruling power becomes a legislature 
and executive chosen by the people themselves. As 
the theory of the government changes, of necessity 



140 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

all the outward forms and machinery and appliances 
of the government must change correspondingly. If 
not, there will be collision, disaster, failure. A gov- 
ernment " of the people, for the people, and by the 
people," like our own, could never be conducted suc- 
cessfully by means of the machinery and appliances 
which serve well for a government of an Arab chief, 
or an Asiatic despot, or even a European limited 
constitutional monarch}' . The life must have a body 
adapted to it. If the life changes, the body must 
change correspondingly. 

This, I think, is the thought (in its application to 
religion) which Jesus meant to convey when he ut- 
tered my text : u Neither do men put new wine into 
old bottles, else the bottles break, and the wine run- 
neth out, and the bottles perish ; but they put new 
wine into new bottles, and both are preserved." Ever 
the religious thought and life of the world changes, 
grows, becomes more diverse, complex, rich. Ever 
that growth and enlargement must find adequate out- 
ward expression, therefore, and external appliances 
for doing its work. It will not do to think of keeping 
to-day the exact religious appliances, organizations, 
methods of operation of three thousand years ago, 
or one thousand years ago, or any time in the past, 
any more than it will to think of keeping to-day the 
exact social or political appliances and methods of 
three thousand years ago, one thousand years ago, 
or any time in the past. The kinds of machinery, 
organizations, methods, which we want to-day in 
religion, as in everything else, are such as adapt 
themselves most perfectly to our present condition 
and present needs. So Jesus taught ; so all best 
experience teaches ; so reason teaches 5 so, as time 
goes on, men must more and more clearly see it to be. 



THE IDEAL CHURCH. 141 

This brings me to the subject of my sermon, with 
the way well opened for the thoughts which I wish 
to present. 

The Ideal Church — what is it ? In the light of 
what I have already said, I can answer in a word : 
It is that Church, in this or any other age, in our 
own or any other country, which best meets the 
practical religious wants of the time and the people. 
The Ideal Church for Borne is a Eoman Church ; the 
Ideal Church for Greece is a Greek Church; the 
Ideal Church for England is an English Church ; the 
Ideal Church for America is an American Church. 
I do not mean that these names are anything. A 
Church in this country called an American Church 
would be no better than the same thing called by 
any other name. On the other hand, a really Ideal 
Church here might be called by a foreign name — 
Greek, or Eoman, or Dutch Eeform, or Abyssinian, for 
that matter. The whole importance is, that the thing 
be American — I mean, just adapted to our wants as 
Americans — and, what is more still, just adapted to 
the particular community and people among whom 
it is. 

But many tell us with great confidence that cer- 
tainly that is the Ideal Christian Church which was 
founded by Jesus. If only we will go back and in- 
quire precisely what kind of an organization he per- 
fected, we shall beyond question have the Ideal 
Church. To this I answer, that, so far as we have any 
information, he did not organize any outward church 
at all. The word translated " church" in the New 
Testament is the Greek word " eKKkrfGia? which 
simply means an assembly or congregation. He 
simply gathered people together as he could, in con- 
gregations larger or smaller, and preached to them. 



142 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

That is all. It was not until long after Jesus' death 
that any Christian churches were organized. Neither 
did Jesus leave any directions behind as to how they 
should be organized. There is nothing that I think of 
in all his teachings that touches the question so 
squarely as does the text before us to-day ; and this, so 
far from prescribing any form of church organization 
or machinery, la} r s down the great principle that no 
such form can be prescribed which will be good for 
anything Jbeyond a certain limited area and time. 
Ever the new wine of a fresh, changing, growing, 
religious life must have new bottles to contain it. 

The disciples of Jesus unquestionably organized 
churches. But everywhere they seem to have done 
this, not according to any prescribed plan, but simply, 
always, in such a form and way as would subserve 
the religious needs of the people; in other words, 
they always seem to have acted upon this broad 
principle of Jesus. For a considerable time the early 
Church seems to have followed on in the same chan- 
nel. But at last it got out, and began to inquire, as 
we hear so many inquiring to-day, What was the 
old plan? What was the authorized, ordained plan ? 
An inquiry which has always brought religious stag- 
nation, fossilization, death. 

So, then, while I admit that the Ideal Church, 
for certain parts of England, a century ago, may 
have been, or at least may have approximated, the 
Methodist Church which the Wesleys founded ; and 
the Ideal Church for Scotland, three hundred years 
ago, the Presbyterian Church, which John Knox 
founded ; and the Ideal Church for our Puritan fore- 
fathers, the Calvinistic Churches which they founded 
in New England; and the Ideal Church for Ger- 
many, in the sixteenth century, the church which 



THE IDEAL CHURCH. 143 

Luther founded ; and the Ideal Churches for Antioch 
and Jerusalem and Ephesus, fifty years after Christ, 
the churches which the disciples of Jesus founded 
there ; yet I cannot admit that any one of these was 
such as would be an Ideal Church for this American 
Eepublic of the nineteenth century. Indeed, the 
very adaptation of those churches to the special 
needs of other times and peoples than ours, makes 
them, in some measure at least, unadapted to us. 
Ever the new wine of new religious thought and life 
needs and must have new bottles of new organiza- 
tions, appointments, methods of expression, and work, 
to correspond. I say it forever must be so. 

So, then, the great question for a Christian people 
to ask in this age, as in every other, as regards the 
Church, is, How can we most perfectly adapt it to 
the practical wants of our time and us? How can 
we make it best subserve the highest interest of this 
community in which, in God's providence, it and we 
are ? And, friends, if these questions were the fore- 
most questions in the minds of all Christian peox>le 
as they labor to build up churches, what vastly dif- 
ferent results we should see from the results which 
too often we see now! How vastly more efficient 
and living and truly Christian a thing the Christian 
Church would become, than it only too frequently is 
to-day ! With what swift and powerful step it would 
march forward to the high place it ought to occupy 
everywhere as an instrumentality of highest good to 
men ! 

With this thought in all minds, how rapidly we 
should at least approximate an Ideal Church ! 

And now permit me to outline, very briefly, at least 
some of the features which, it seems to me, the Ideal 
Church of to-day and our American civilization must 



144 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

wear. These features, as I have already intimated, 
must, to some extent, change for every different 
locality and different set of circumstances under 
which the people comprising the church find them- 
selves placed. But, after all, I think there are some 
general features which would be found in a really 
Ideal Church anywhere and everywhere in this time 
and country. 

And first, let me speak of the aim of such a Church. 

Negatively, the aim of the Ideal Church will not 
be self-aggrandizement. Self-aggrandizement, either 
for man or institution, is not according to the spirit 
of a true Christianity. Again, the aim of the Ideal 
Church will not be growth in wealth, only as a 
secondary and entirely subordinate matter. Of 
course, I do not mean that it will not need money. 
I recognize the fact that its usefulness will be in- 
creased to an important extent by its wealth, if its 
wealth only be consecrated Avealth. But a Church 
with right aims will never seek to get wealthy people 
into it merely because they are rich. It will always 
bear in mind that Jesus did his work mainly among 
the poor, and, what is more important still, that the 
poor, because of their comparatively hard wwldly 
lot, have especial claims upon and need of the Church 
for comfort and encouragement. Furthermore, the 
aim of the Ideal Church will not be mutual admira- 
tion, or dilettantism, or intellectual or a3sthetic or any 
other kind of mere self-gratification. If men and 
women must have mutual admiration societies and 
places to go on Sunday to luxuriate in rich and 
artistic surroundings, and delight themselves with 
aesthetic emotions kindled by music or oratory, or to 
indulge in a3sthetic criticisms, let them at least not 
appropriate the name Church, but spare that for 



THE IDE AX CHURCH. 145 

something better. Again, the aim of the Church 
will not be to form an " I-am-more-holy-than-thou n 
society. In other words, it will not be the gathering 
together the people of a community, who think they 
are, if not about as good as they want to be, at least 
better than their fellows, into a select society, who, in 
their own church ship, propose to ride to heaven 
under the especial favor and patronage of God. £To 
such aim or thought as that will the true Church 
have. Finally, its aim will not be the grinding of 
ecclesiastical or theological grist. I mean, the true 
Church will not aim to make of itself a mill for the 
grinding of lost sinners into saved saints by any 
theological or other process, the monopoly of which 
is in any sense committed to its hands as a Church. 

But the aim of the true or Ideal Church will be 
always threefold : First, its aim will be to promote 
the highest and most enduring good ; not the mere 
pleasure or entertainment, but the highest and most 
enduring good of all its members. It will strive to 
make itself in the largest and best sense an associa- 
tion for mutual help, for mutual encouragement, 
church sympathy, co-operation — a truly fraternal 
band ; that thus its members, standing side by side, 
and supporting each other, may be stronger than 
they could be alone ,• and each, doing what he can to 
bless others, may himself be blessed as otherwise he 
could not be. 

Secondly, its aim will be, not only to promote the 
highest and most lasting welfare of its membership ; 
but also to go a step further, and extend as far as 
possible the limits of that membership. The true 
Church is no closed circle. Its ranks are always 
open, and its hand always extended to welcome any 
and all who truly sympathize with its objects. It 
7 



146 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

would not be a true Church if it made its conditions 
of membership hard. For thus it would shut out 
people who, most of all, need to be in. Of course, 
bad men, who are making little or no effort to be 
good, should not be received into it, because then it 
would soon become corrupt and lose its high objects, 
and become a mere worthless thing — able to accom- 
plish no good for anybody. But bad men (I care not 
how bad they have been), if they come to that point 
where they earnestly desire to reform, I think the 
Ideal Church will always gladly receive. 

And, as to the matter of closing the doors of the 
Church against doubters and tinbelievers, I do not 
think there is a class of persons in the world more 
sincerely to be sympathized with than those who find 
it hardest to believe in religion and spiritual things. 
I am disposed to think that the Ideal Church, when 
we have one in this country, will not repel, as the 
Christian Church in almost all ages has done, but 
will joyfully and lovingly welcome the earnest 
doubter, who is feeling for the truth but has not 
yet been able to find it. I think the True Church 
will feel that such a person has great claims upon it, 
and to such it can do more good than to almost any 
other, by throwing the tender, strong arms of its own 
love and faith about him. Oh ! I think the Church 
has been cruel — not simply unchristian, but positive- 
ly cruel — in the way it has treated sincere doubt in 
the past, and in the way it is only too generally treat- 
ing it now. As if the sorrow of a man's being com- 
pelled by his own honest thinking and investigation 
to differ from others whom he respects and has 
believed in harmony with, and to find himself drift- 
ing away from anchors which continue to hold others 
— as if the sorrow of this, I say, were not enough, 



THE IDEAL CHUKCH. 147 

without the Church turning its back upon him in 
this his time of deepest darkness and sorest need. 
For one, I am in my own mind sure that the Ideal 
Church, so far from making difference of belief from 
the majority of its members a ground of rejection 
from its membership, will, when it comes, open its 
arms to no class of persons more tenderly than to 
earnest doubters. Mind, I do not say to quibblers 
or scoffers, or persons who pride themselves in their 
unbelief; these have no more a place in a Christian 
Cburch than have open adulterers and liars and 
profaners of sacred things. But honest doubters, 
men who are inquiring honestly for the truth, sin- 
cerely desirous of embracing it just so far and soon 
as they can find it out — these, no matter in what 
direction their present beliefs, so far as they have 
formed beliefs, now lean, I believe the Ideal Church 
will receive tenderly and joyfully. To such lengths 
of change from what has been do I think the Chris- 
tian Church must advance before it does the work in 
modern society which it ought to do. 

And if it ought to go as far as that, then surely 
smaller doubts and differences of belief, as, for ex- 
ample, between Christian sect and Christian sect, so 
far from keeping persons out of the Church, should 
scarcely more be taken into the account in such a 
connection than the cut of their coats. To let any 
such thing debar persons from admission to a Chris- 
tian Church, if those persons are genuinely in sym- 
pathy with the general objects and work of tbe 
Church, it seems to me is utterly to mistake. 

Finally, the aim of the Ideal Church will be, not 
only, first, to promote the highest and most enduring 
good of its members, and, secondly, to extend that 
membership as widely as may be, by feeling a sincere 



148 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

interest in all our fellow-men, and putting up no hard 
or unreasonable conditions ; but, third and lastly, its 
aim also will be to go entirely outside of itself, and 
do all the good possible, in every way, there. In 
other words, while it will strive, in every way in its 
power, to benefit those who are inside its lines, and 
try earnestly to gather in as many as possible, be- 
cause it believes that inside is a good place to be, 
it still will not forget that good is good anywhere, 
and that it is right and Christian to bless and benefit 
men in any place and through any channel. Hence, 
the Ideal Church will interest itself so far as possible 
in every good word and work of society. It will not 
be a narrow thing, self-centered, interested only in 
promoting its own welfare ; feeling that there is 
nothing of much value, nothing that has saving 
power, except what has a church label on it. But it 
will have an open eye, and a warm heart, and a ready 
hand for all reforms, enlightenments, cultures, bene- 
ficiencies, charities, humanities — everything which 
can lift men up to higher planes of living, deve- 
lop manhood, promote the kingdom of heaven on 
earth. 

This brings me to the question of organization of 
the Ideal Church. 

If the aims of the Ideal Church are to be such, or 
approximately such, as I have indicated, then the 
question that next suggests itself is, What kind of 
an organization must it of necessity have, in order to 
enable it effectively to carry out those aims ? Of 
course, I cannot attempt here to answer this ques- 
tion with any completeness or in much detail. I 
can only throw out a few general thoughts. 

Doubtless a too prominent place has been given, in 
the organization and management of churches in the 



THE IDEAL CHURCH. 149 

past, to preaching. In Puritan times preaching 
seems to have been almost the only thing thought 
about, or, at least, it seems to have been the great, 
overshadowing thing, of a public character, which 
the Church planned for. So emphatically w T as this 
the case, that to the preaching, together with the ac- 
cessories of singing, Scripture-reading, and prayer, 
w T hich clustered about the central sermon, singularly 
enough the name " service >" or " services " came to 
be attached. As if the highest idea of service of 
God entertained was that of going through certain 
exercises, of which preaching, listening, singing, and 
the like were chief. And — did you ever think of it ? 
— what a commentary is it upon our Christianity of 
to-day that we continue to mean, when we speak of 
engaging in Divine service, or the services of the 
Sabbath, or of God, merely going to meeting ? As 
if mere going to meeting comes much nearer to serv- 
ing — serving God or our fellow T -men — than a farmer's 
hired man's coming into the house of an evening and 
sitting down by a comfortable fire, or drawing up to 
the table at noon to eat a good dinner, comes to 
serving that farmer. Of course, if the hired man 
does not get rest when night comes, he will not long 
be in a condition to render his employer much service. 
Just so in religion. Hearing preaching is important 
in its place, and so is prayer important, and sacred 
song, and all the exercises of public worship ; but 
yet these are not in the truest sense service. Ser- 
vice is not getting, but giving ; service is not receiv- 
ing, but doing; service is not enjoyment or worship, 
but work. Not when men sing, or listen to a sermon, 
or pray, valuable as all these are, do they most truly 
engage in the " service of God," or the "Divine ser- 
vice" of life; but when they do the will of God in 



150 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

practical labor and sacrifice for others, and in obedi- 
ence to the behests of duty. Oh ! there are lives, 
which are one " Divine service" almost from begin- 
ning to end, which scarcely ever see the inside of a 
church ; while many other lives never have any part 
or lot in any real u Divine services," whose paths, 
nevertheless, lie to the church and even the prayer- 
meetings, regularly as the appointments for these 
come. 

Now, the conception of religion, which has pro- 
duced this strange perversion of the word service, 
is one which the Ideal Church, when it comes, will 
have outgrown. The Ideal Church will listen to 
preaching and sing and pray not less earnestly and 
devoutly than does the Church of to-day, or than 
has done the Church of the past ; but to all this it 
will add a real service of God, through beneficence, 
labors of love, enthusiasm of humanity, which nei- 
ther past nor present have reached. 

I think the Ideal Church will be vastly broader 
and more comprehensive than the Church of the past 
has been. It will labor none the less directly to save 
men ; nay, it will labor more directly and constantly 
to save men ; but its idea of what salvation consists 
in will be far more rational and true ; and its me- 
thods of effecting that salvation will be far less theo- 
logical and artificial, and therefore superficial, and 
far more simple and natural and permanently effec- 
tive. 

It will attempt "to bring spiritual and moral salva- 
tion to men largely through bringing them physical, 
industrial, social, mental salvation. It will realize, 
as never has been realized, that every part of man's 
nature stands most intimately connected with every 
other part ; that no part can be neglected without 



THE IDEAL CHUKCH. 151 

loss to every other ; that saving a man in the true 
sense is a large thing, too large to be crowded into 
a few days or hours, or to be accomplished merely 
by appeals to his feeling or the emotional part of 
his nature. It will plan, as the Church has never 
planned, for a salvation which shall require for its 
consummation, not a few minutes at an anxious seat 
or a mourners' bench, but a whole life, and which, 
shall be nothing less than that perfection of charac- 
ter, that ripeness of manhood and womanhood, that 
fullness of life, physical, intellectual, social, moral, 
and especially spiritual, which is now and eternally 
happiness and heaven. 

It will busy itself to effect for people a salvation, 
not like the gourd of Jonah, which grew in a night 
and withered in a day, but a salvation which shall 
be like the farmer's wheat, that grows silently by 
day and night, by sun and shower, first reaching 
" the blade, then the ear, then the full wheat in the 
ear " — a salvation which allies itself with education, 
intelligence, culture, all elevating, purifying, enno- 
bling influences, and depends for its attainment, un- 
der God, upon nothing less trustworthy and sure 
than all these combined. 

I think the Ideal Church, when we get to it, will 
take on, a good deal more than most of us suppose, 
the form of organization of our Christian unions, or 
unions for Christian work, or social unions, or, if 
you please, Christian associations, which are of late 
coming so much into notice. I think these associa- 
tions and unions have had the success they have be- 
cause they were a real need. The Church had been 
a lame, inefficient, one-sided thing ; whole depart- 
ments of work which imperatively needed to be done 
were not being done by the Church. It is beginning, 



152 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

of late, to wake up to its failures in these directions 
wonderfully. The old idea that religious u service" 
is primarily a going to meeting on Sunday is passing 
away, and the better idea coming in its place that 
real religious service is doing duty and serving one's 
fellow-man (and therefore God) with religious fidel- 
ity. The old theological idea of soul-saving is by 
degrees passing away, and men are beginning to see 
that true soul-saving is man-saving, woman-saving, 
character-saving, saving from ignorance and super- 
stition to knowledge, from fear to hope, from weak- 
ness to strength, from vice to virtue, from idle and 
aimless to high and earnest living. And all this en- 
largement of ideas about religion, service of God, 
salvation of men, necessitates a vastly enlarged and 
constantly enlarging idea of the scope and functions 
of the Church. This will go on, and the Ideal 
Church, when we get to that, will plan not simply 
for Sunday, but for all days in the w^eek ; not simply 
for worship, but for work ; not simply for adults, 
Trut for children ; not simj)ly for adults and children, 
but for the young people ; not simply for religious 
impression, but for much solid instruction, both re- 
ligious and other; not simply for instruction of any 
or all kinds, but, in their proper places, for enter- 
tainment and amusement. No means will it over- 
look or instrumentality neglect which it can em- 
ploy to do good, and benefit either its own mem- 
bership or others outside. It will preach and sing 
and pray ; doubtless it will, to a greater or less ex- 
tent, carry on revival meetings of a rational kind ; 
but it will establish and carry on, as not a wiiit 
less important in their place, libraries and reading- 
rooms, and lecture courses, and literary classes, 
and conversation clubs, and social gatherings, and 



THE IDEAL CHURCH. 153 

entertainments for young and old ; not to say cha- 
rities, benevolence, good-doing of every kind pos- 
sible. 

We hear a great deal said nowadays about reach- 
ing the masses, a great deal that is astonishing for 
the superficial notion which it reveals of what any 
reaching the masses that will amount to anything 
must consist in. Reaching the masses ! Yes, hand- 
organs reach the masses, negro minstrels reach the 
masses, pot-house politicians reach the masses. But 
what better off are the masses after we get them 
reached? To reach the masses in a w 7 ay perma- 
nently to benefit them, we must reach them with 
preaching and singing and prayers in their place ; 
but, beyond these, as quite as important, we must 
reach them with knowledge, enlightenment, educa- 
tion — education of body, mind, heart, conscience — 
better homes, more steady wages, better physical 
surroundings, better social conditions, better moral 
influences, helps of every kind that wise and 
thoughtful and good men and women can devise. 
This will be reaching the masses which will go down 
to the roots of things, which w 7 ill renovate society 
through and through, and which will endure. The 
Ideal Church will see this, and will plan its organi- 
zation and direct its efforts accordingly. 

Is the work that I sketch a large work ? I grant 
it is a stupendous work. It is a work vast enough, 
ay, and grand enough, too, to fill the hearts and tax 
the brains and hands of all good men and women 
on the earth, without reference to name or creed, 
for generations to come. And the hopeful feature 
about it lies just in this fact, that men are beginning 
to realize that it is a vast work, a work so vast 
that the old church machineries and in strum entali- 
7* 



154 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

ties utterly break down in attempting to accomplish 
it; and that other instrumentalities, larger, more 
thorough, more according to nature and reason, 
more slow-working, may be, but incomparably more 
deep-working, and therefore more really effective, 
must be employed, if not in the places of the old in- 
strumentalities, at least to supplement them. 

The Church that is to be born, not out of the con- 
ceptions or needs of the past times or other lands, 
but out of the deepest wants, and warmest sympa- 
thies and best intelligence, of the here and the now, 
I say, will see all this, and set itself to work accord- 
ingly. 

God be thanked for the broader knowledge and 
better understanding of these things that have come 
into the Christian Church of this age already. Let 
it go steadily forward, enlarging and perfecting. 
God bless every man, woman, or child, who is doing 
anything to make the Christian Church more effective 
in its heaven-appointed work of saving the world 
from its ignorance, its want, its sorrow, its sin. 
Let these continue intelligently, self-forgettingly, 
earnestly, patiently, in the spirit of Him, whom, with 
joy and inspiration, we look to as our teacher and 
leader in all these things; and thus, believe me, 
dear Christian friends and brothers, ere we are 
aware, not only will others all up and down Chris- 
tendom see, but we ourselves also shall see, at our 
own very doors, that for which the world so eagerly 
waits — the Ideal Christian Church. 



THE LIFE THAT EOW IS. 



" Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of 
the life that now is and of that which is to come." — 1 Timo- 
thy iv. 8. 

I think it to be an absolutely insuperable objec- 
tion to the whole orthodox, and especially the whole 
orthodox revivalistic conception of salvation, that it 
precisely reverses some things which it is of the ut- 
most importance should not be reversed. Instead 
of, with St. Paul, making godliness profitable, first 
for the life that now is and after that for the life 
which is to come, it calls attention first, and with the 
utmost intensity, to the life that is to come, almost 
dropping out of account the life that now is. The 
themes which fill almost the whole horizon of 
thought, if not in the common Sunday preaching 
and worship of evangelical orthodoxy, at least in the 
preaching, exhortation, hymns, and worship of ordi- 
nary evangelical revivals, are of a nature far away, 
post-temporal, essentially speculative, and, withal, 
calculated to work in the highest degree upon the 
imagination. The leading and all-overshadowing 
idea of salvation is that of salvation from pains and 
penalties 3 T onder, and unto joys and rewards yonder, 
in the far-away hereafter of another existence. By 
perpetual disparaging contrasts between this world 
and the next, the present life is made to sink into 



156 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

insignificance, and to become despoiled of its attrac- 
tiveness, dignity, and interest. 

In other words, the natural and right perspective 
between this world and the next is destroyed, and in 
its place a perspective that is in the highest degree 
false and mischievous is created. 

T have no doubt that it is well to turn one's atten- 
tion, sometimes, seriously and earnestly to the con- 
templation of the world to come. Unquestionably 
it is best for us to understand clearly as we may the 
extent and limitations of our knowledge concerning 
that world. Evidently it is healthful to our spirits 
occasionally to gird ourselves with thoughts of its 
rewards, fruitions, revelations, glories. We are all 
so weak, so hesitating, so easily discouraged, so 
much like children, that we need to have encourage- 
ments held out before us, and something done every 
now and then to kindle anew our hope. We never 
do work of much value unless we are working for an 
end. We never run our best unless we are run- 
ning for some sort of prize. We instinctively drop 
down into low, unworthy ways of living, into ruts 
and dreary routines, into low spirits and nerveless- 
ness, unless we have something shining before and 
above us to beckon us. Hence the value to us 
here and now, in this world, of the fact and thought 
of heaven. It is a star that never sets. There are 
few earthly things that are not liable to suffer 
eclipse. While we gaze at them, and even at the 
moment when they seem most attractive, and we 
think -them most certainly within our grasp, they 
sink down behind the dark mountains, often to rise 
not again. Not so heaven. It forever shines and 
beckons above us all. Higher than the mountains, 
above the clouds, yonder it is always, full of cheer 



THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 157 

and promise and inspiration of hope. We have 
reason sincerely to thank God, not only that there 
is a heaven for us when this life is over, but also 
that that heaven is, so to speak, in sight even from 
this world, a constant bow of promise upon our 
skies; in some sense a prize, shining with untold 
splendor, to encourage and strengthen us, especially 
at those times in the "lives of us all, when we are 
weary and sad, and when without some such super- 
earthly reward life would scarcely seem worth living. 

And yet, friends, cheering as the prospect of hea- 
ven is in dark hours, bright as is the hope that it 
flings over life, healthful as occasional, calm, and se- 
rious contemplation of it doubtless is, it may, never- 
theless, occupy quite too prominent a place in our 
minds. 

And this, as I have intimated, is the thought 
which I wish to ask you all seriously to consider to- 
day — especially in its connection with revivals and 
revival preaching. 

All of you who have ever attended religious re- 
vival meetings of one kind and another, such as 
from time to time blaze up here and there all over 
Protestant Christendom, know very well what over- 
mastering emphasis and prominence are given, in 
prayer and hymn and exhortation aud sermon, to 
such subjects as heaven and hell and death and 
judgment and things of the next world generally; 
and, on the other hand, how correspondingly strong 
and constant is the effort made to disparage and be- 
little almost everything pertaining to this world. 

As thoughtful men and women placed in this 
world by One wiser than we, and given a work to do 
here quite commensurate with our fullest energies, 
what shall we say of this kind of thing ? 



158 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

Is it good or is it evil ? Candidly and seriously, 
does it help or does it hinder us in performing faith- 
fully our earthly stewardship ? 

For one I cannot doubt which answer to make. It 
has been my fortune to see a great deal of these 
things, in circumstances as well calculated as could 
be desired to observe their workings and results. 
And while I recognize in thetn something of good, I 
yet cannot but conclude that the evil is vastly greater 
than the good. Indeed, I am convinced that one 
of the most foolish and really harmful things which 
we can any of us do, in ordinary conditions of life 
and health, is to spend much time in speculating 
about the world to come. And this for various 
plain reasons. In the first place, we none of us have 
more than about so much energy of mind. If this is 
expended in one way, it cannot be in another. All 
that is consumed in thinking about, and longing for, 
and painting pictures of, the life to come, leaves ex- 
actly so much less to be put into this life — into the 
doing of present duties, and the accomplishment of 
God's will in present hours and events. You cannot 
be in two places at once. If, while your body is on 
earth, you are living, in thought and imagination and 
longings, in a far-away heaven, your body might as 
well be there too, for all the good that you will do 
here. For a man to be worth anything in this world 
he must live here — have an interest here. He must 
regard this world as the place where God has put 
him and wants him to stay, and think and plan 
and love and labor, until, when his work is done, 
he shall be summoned hence. 

I suppose that dreaming and castle-building 
with reference to the future life is as bad as 
castle - building and dreaming with reference to 



THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 159 

this life. Says another, " We are told nothing dis- 
tinctly of the heavenly world except that it is free 
from sorrow and pure from sin. What is said of 
pearl gates, golden floors, and the like, is accepted 
as merely figurative, even by religious enthusiasts 
themselves ; and whatever they pass their time in 
conceiving, whether of the happiness of risen souls, 
of their intercourse, o£ of the appearance and em- 
ployment of the heavenly powers, is entirely the 
product of their own imaginations, and as completely 
and distinctly a work of fiction or romantic inven- 
tion as any novel of Sir Walter Scott's. That the 
romance is founded on religious theory or doctrine, 
that no disagreeable or wicked persons are admitted 
into the story, and that the inventor fervently hopes 
that some part of it may hereafter come true, does 
not in the least alter the real nature of the effort or 
enjoyment." We often hear excessive novel-reading 
condemned, on the ground that the habitual novel- 
reader comes to live in a painted, unreal world of 
fiction, and hence loses all taste for common, actual 
life, and plain, unadorned, unromantic duties and 
events. The condemnation is doubtless just. The 
habit of day-dreaming, too, and building air-castles is 
as severely condemned, and for the same reason. Each 
of these habits emasculates the one who indulges in 
it. His mental energies expended in this direction, 
he is, of necessity, correspondingly weak and ineffi- 
cient in other directions. 

But do castle-building and romancing and dream- 
ing about death and heaven and eternity and a far- 
away salvation any less unfit one, think you, for 
doing well life's present duties ? Is religious sen- 
timentalism any better pleasing to God, or any 
less harmful to the one who indulges in it, than any 



160 ORTHODOXY AND EEVIVALISM. 

other kind of sen timentalism ? If a tithe of the energy 
of brain and spirit and heart, which, during all the 
ages, has been given to senseless and useless dream- 
ing over and theorizing about, nay, and even to so- 
called preparation for the life to come, had been, 
given to blessing and benefiting men here, to im- 
proving their condition politically, socially, industri- 
ally, intellectually, physically, morally, spiritually, in 
this present life, how different would have been the 
results ! 

How much more God would have been honored ! 
How much more perfectly the kingdom of God Avould 
have come among men ! How much better each in- 
dividual man, thus spending his earthly life in actual- 
ly doing good, would have found himself prepared at 
death for an entrance upon a higher life beyond 
this! 

You ask, Do not I believe in securing salvation 
while in this life ? Do not I believe in making prep- 
aration while in this world for the next ? I reply, 
I believe that the one great work of this present life is 
the securing of salvation. So emphatic is my belief 
on this point, that I even regard a man who has 
gained anything else whatever, wealth or knowl- 
edge or fame or power, and has not secured this, as 
having made a failure of life. So thoroughly do I re- 
gard this world as the true place to make preparation 
for the next, that I look upon the king, or the most 
famous man of his time, who has no " treasures laid 
up in heaven," as being in a less enviable condition 
than many a man who is not known beyond his 
neighborhood, and has not a dollar that he can call 
his own. 

But, while I believe all this, I differ very widely 
and even radically in my idea of what salvation is, 



THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 161 

and what constitutes real preparation for the next 
world, from the idea which underlies all this preach- 
ing and speculating about future things, of which I 
have been speaking. I believe that a good deal 
which goes under the name of preparation for heaven 
is anything but preparation for heaven. Heaven is 
a place, or state, or both, of highest happiness. But 
its happiness grows out of, is a consequence of, its 
holiness. The only possible 'way, then, to become fit- 
ted for heaven, is to become fitted for the society of 
the good and the pure, and God, the holy, loving, 
perfect All-Father — that is, to become one's self good 
and pure. What would be the right kind of an 
earthly life for you to live if there were no hereafter ? 
Outline for yourself such a life. A life that would 
result in the most of good, in the highest sense, to 
yourself, and in the most of good to your fellow-men, 
and best satisfy your own conscience, and best an- 
swer to your highest ideal of true living. Outline to 
yourself, I say, such a life. Then know, when you 
have done so, that you have before you a picture of 
the kind of life the living of which will be the best 
preparation you can possibly make for the world to 
come. Living that kind of life is salvation. Salva- 
tion is not something that has to do solely or even 
primarily with the future life. It is a thing primari- 
ly of the present life and the present time. Future 
salvation is to be thought about. But future salva- 
tion is simply the necessary consequent and out- 
growth of present salvation. If you are endeavoring 
to live now a pure and moral life ; if you are follow- 
ing now the best light you can get ; if you are habit- 
ually obedient now to conscience ; if that command 
of Christ, to love God supremely and your neighbor 
as yourself, is now a living law to you, to which you 



162 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

are earnestly and devotedly striving to conform, then 
you are saved. The matter is no longer problemati- 
cal. Salvation has come to you. You may sleep 
as sweetly at night as an infant upon its mother's 
breast, for no power in earth or hell can harm you. 
Dying before the morning's sun, you would find, to 
your released spirit, 

" Heaven open'd wide 
Her ever-during gates, * * * 
On golden hinges moving." 

I am very desirous that we should get a clear idea, 
if we can, of the real meaning of soul-saving. There 
is, in many directions, much said about it that is ex- 
ceedingly misleading. Indeed, I have sometimes 
queried whether the words u saved " and "salvation " 
and even " Saviour " had not become so hopelessly 
woven about by theology with false ideas, that it 
might not be as well to discard them altogether, and 
employ in their places words not thus falsified, to 
convey the meaning for which these were originally 
used. If, however, we do use them, we should, at 
least, be careful to strip them of their false theologi- 
cal masks first. It was said of Jesus (when as an in- 
fant his name was given him), " He shall be called 
Jesus — Saviour — for he shall save his people from 
their sins." Here we have the primary idea of sal- 
vation. It is saving from sins ; and not saving from 
sin either as a theological figment, a something that 
came through another, nobody knows how or why ; 
nor yet saving from sin as a spectral and awful mys- 
tery or hobgoblin thing that we can't understand or 
shun, which always bends darkly over us from cradle 
to grave, tainting with its awful breath everything we 
do, by our very birth having a right to us, and wait- 
ing, in spite of all our efforts, to hurry us to hell the 



THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 163 

moment we die, unless delivered by another almighty 
one outside of and beyond ourselves, as a sheep 
might be delivered from a lion's jaws by a powerful 
hunter. 

Such ideas of sin as these necessitate the old theo- 
logical ideas of salvation, and, of necessity, make 
Jesus, if a Saviour at all, into the old, unreal, theo- 
logical Saviour. But such ideas of sin are utterly 
unwarranted. They do not bear at all the light 
of investigation, and happily the age is at last be- 
ginning to see it. Sin is nothing more than wrong- 
doing or breaking laws. If I fail in discharge of the 
duties I owe to myself, I sin against myself. If I fail 
in the duties I owe to my fellows, I sin against my 
fellows. If I fail in the duties I owe to God, I 
sin against God. I am created under laws — physi- 
cal laws, social laws, intellectual laws, moral laws, 
spiritual laws. If I obey these laws, I do right or 
righteously. If I break them, I commit sins. This 
is the true idea of sin. It is not a figment or specter, 
but a reality. It is not something that comes down 
to us from Adam, but something that has its birth in 
our own bosoms. Salvation from sin then becomes 
plain. A man is saved just in the degree in which 
he loves righteousness and hates wrong. A man has 
attained to salvation just to the extent that his life 
sets in the direction of obedience to all the divine 
laws that wrap him about. On the other hand, a 
man is just so far lost as he is lost to virtue and man- 
hood, and to conformity to God's will, as expressed 
in the laws and conditions of his being. Let me illus- 
trate. Suppose you have a son. He is going away 
from home, among strangers and evil influences. 
You express great anxiety for his safety. What do 
you mean by his safety ? You mean that you greatly 



164 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

desire that lie shall be kept safe — be saved or have sal- 
vation (for all are the same word) — from the tempta- 
tions and vices which will assail him, and which you 
know, if he yields to them, will sadly hurt him. Now, 
as I understand it, this is precisely what is to be un- 
derstood by God's desire that all his children on 
earth should be saved. He wishes them to be saved 
from wrong-doing, which is ruin, unto righteousness, 
which is peace and joy and blessedness and life now 
and forever. 

Or, suppose again, to make the analogy more com- 
plete, that your boy who has gone from you, and has 
been thrown into associations that are debasing, has 
yielded to temptation and fallen. Your anxiety is all 
the greater that he shall be saved. But what do you 
mean now by being saved! You mean that you de- 
sire that he shall in some way be led to see how wrong 
and harmful a course he is pursuing, and be brought 
back out of ruinous evil to the safety of virtue. Just 
that. The " saving w or " salvation" you desire so 
earnestly for him is salvation from doing w r rong, 
breaking laws, committing sins, every one of Avhich 
you know will chastise him with scorpions before he 
has done with it. This is exactly what I understand 
our Heavenly Father wants concerning every sin- 
ning earthly child of his. He wants him saved from 
sin, and the sad consequences that inevitably spring 
from sin, to become a child of obedience and holi- 
ness, and hence an inheritor of all fruitions that, in 
the nature of things, spring from holiness and obedi- 
ence, first in this world, then in the next. 

This is what I conceive to be true salvation. 
This kind of salvation the world needs as it needs 
nothing else. Such a salvation is not a theological 
speculation, but a reality, speaking with an authori- 



THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 165 

tative voice to every man, saying, " I am of God." It 
is with such a salvation as this that Jesus and every 
true disciple of his goes forth to save man. 

It is sad that the Church should so habitually have 
perverted or overlooked the very first and radical 
idea of salvation as forever, the moment saving men 
was spoken of, to point at once to the future world 
instead of this. It is not the future world that we 
are first of all to consider when we speak of salva- 
tion. The great, all-important subject of consideration 
for you and me and every human being is, how to 
save " the life that now is." That saved, all is saved. 
That lost, the loss is irreparable. 

If you wish good health by and by in the years 
that are to come, you know the true way to insure it 
is by taking care of your health now. If you would 
be wise by and by, you know you must improve your 
time in gathering knowledge and experience now. If 
you would be respected by and by, you know it is 
necessary to make yourself worthy of respect now. 
If you would be good by and by, you must discipline 
yourself to goodness now, and all the while from now 
till then. This same relation of things holds good 
between this world and the next. There is no royal 
road or short cut to heaven. If you want a heaven 
for yourself in the world to come, prepare it for 
yourself in the life that now is. You have no reason 
to think you will enter upon the next life in anywise 
changed in character from what you are when you 
leave this. " He that is holy let him be holy still. 
He that is unholy let him be unholy still." And the 
character with which you leave this world will be the 
slow and natural growth of the years of your whole 
earthly life, and cannot, in the very nature of things, 
be the result of anything else, the teaching of any 



166 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

theology or man to the contrary notwithstand- 
ing. 

The true conception of human existence doubtless 
is as one in this world and the next : this the rill, 
that the river ; this the dawn, that the day ; this the 
bud, that the flower ; this the blade, that the full 
corn in the ear. Heaven is not something to be won 
or got or bought, either by ourselves or somebody else 
for us ; but it is something to be grown into. In the 
next world you are simply your own old self, only 
moved on and moved up. Swedenborg somewhere 
gives us a representation of persons who had died, 
and did not for a considerable time even know they 
were dead. Their old thoughts and feelings and 
loves and desires of the earthly life remained, and 
the world into which they had entered did not at 
first seem different from the one they had left, only it 
w r as spiritual instead of physical. Hence they went 
on with their old employments, and ran the rounds 
of their old pleasures. Only by degrees did they 
perceive their chauge of states; and that as they 
themselves became, by natural processes of growth 
and development, capable of deeper seeing and 
higher knowledge. 

Whether the Swedish philosopher's conception of 
the next world is true or not, is it not, doubtless, at 
least more rational, more in accord with the facts 
of our spiritual nature, more in harmony with the 
teachings of Jesus, and therefore, in every way more 
worthy of credence, not to say far more healthful in 
its influence upon those who hold it, than the views 
which are so commonly held and preached in Chris- 
tendom to-day, and which are given such an especial 
prominence in connection with most so-called reli- 
gious revivals? 



THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 167 

Some excellently well-meaning people seem really 
to think that the true way to exalt heaven is to de- 
base and slander earth. But evidently nothing could 
be more false or foolish. How can slandering this 
life make the life to come one whit better ? And if it 
does not make the life to come any better, neither 
can it by any possibility honor or please God. Did 
not God make this life ? Is it not his precisely as 
much as the next can be his ? Is it not his will 
that you should be here now as truly as it can be his 
will that you shall be in heaven by and by ? Is he 
any less displeased, think you, if now, while you are 
living here on earth, you slander earth as a " desert 
drear," and all that sort of thing, than he will be 
by and by, when you get to heaven, if you slander 
heaven in a similar way % The fact is, earth is not a 
"desert drear" to any right-feeling, right-minded 
person ; and if to any it is, then be sure that in nine 
cases out of ten it has been made so by sentimental 
and false religious teaching. 

Suppose you are a child, and your father has two 
residences not far apart, say one in the city and one 
in the country just outside. A part of his family 
are at one, a part at the other. He himself divides 
his time between the two as his business may 
demand, or as, for various reasons, it may seem best. 
For the present it seems wisest to him that you 
should remain at the country home. Time goes on. 
The home where you are is a delightful one. You 
enjoy it. But by and by I get into your confidence, 
and begin to whisper in your ears words of dispar- 
agement concerning the home where you now are. 
Then I tell you of the other home of your father's, 
and institute invidious comparisons, thinking to exalt 
that by debasing this. Little by little I succeed in 



1 68 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

turning your content with your country home into 
discontent; your appreciation of its charms and ex- 
cellences into painful sensibility to its supposed 
lacks ; your happy days of delight in your tasks into 
days of drudgery and longing for the other home 
in the city ; and your former unquestioning, joyous 
acquiescence in the lot your father has assigned you, 
into murmurings at what seems to you now, with 
your false ideas, his strange dealings with you. 
Think you your father will be pleased with what I 
have done ? Eather he will be indignant, and justly. 
So, I apprehend, our Father who is in heaven, so far 
from being pleased, is greatly pained and displeased 
when any man presumes, before any of his fellow- 
creatures, to disparage and depreciate this world, 
where that Father in his wisdom and love has seen 
fit to give us our present home. Nor do I apprehend 
that it makes his pain and displeasure much less to 
see that our discontent is caused by invidious com- 
parisons between our present home and our other 
home in " the city not made with hands." Draw a 
line right through the Christian world. Put on one 
side those who live for this life, to do the duties of 
the day and the hour, practically to make men better, 
to accomplish good in every possible way, to forget 
themselves and bless their fellows ; and, on the other 
side, put those who make it the great and absorbing 
object of life to save their souls, to escape hell and 
gain heaven, and what a difference between the two 
classes ! Is there room for any sort of question as to 
which pleases God best ? Nay, is there any sort of 
question as to which will find heaven's gates open 
widest to them by and by ? 

I cannot but remember St. James's definition of re- 
ligion, which, by the way, is the only direct definition 



THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 169 

of religion in the Bible. u Pure religion and un- 
dented before God and the Father," he says, " is this : 
to visit the widows and the fatherless in their afflic- 
tion, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." 
No mention is made here of the world to come, but 
the theater of religion is set down as solely this 
present life. And this harmonizes precisely with the 
teaching of Jesus. You will all recollect that strik- 
ing passage where Jesus goes so far as to represent 
certain persons as being met at the entrance way to 
heaven with the words, u Depart ! I never knew you. 
For [on the earth] I was sick and ye visited me not ; 
I was naked and ye clothed me not; I was hungry 
and ye gave me no food." While others, who had 
not even thought of gaining heaven, found the gates 
wide open to receive them, and a welcome the warm- 
est awaiting them, not because they had been trying 
to save their souls, but because they had been kind 
and compassionate to their suffering fellow-men dur- 
ing their earthly lives. Surely there is a lesson here, 
which we shall all do well to learn, as to the true way 
of making preparation for the world beyond this. 
Will the time ever come when the Christian Church 
will cease teaching that the first and great thing to be 
thought about in this life is to escape hell and get to 
heaven ? It is not. Jesus declared, " He that seeketh 
to save his life shall lose it ; but he that loseth his life 
for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." 
In other words, he that makes it the supreme object 
of his endeavor in this world to secure his own sal- 
vation in the world to come, shall find in that world 
that he has made a failure ; while he who, with large 
sympathies, has forgotten himself in this world, and 
lost himself in his care for others, and in doing the 
work which God has given him to do, will find in the 
8 



170 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

next world most glorious tilings awaiting him. It is 
related of one of the most eminent of English philan- 
thropists, that he was interrogated by one of the 
evangelical preachers of his day, who was his friend 
and felka deep interest in his welfare, as to whether 
he had taken care to secure the salvation of his own 
soul. The philanthropist, surprised by the query, 
replied that really he had been so busy working for 
others that he had forgotten that he had a soul. 
And, strange and startling as the reply may seem to 
us, who have been accustomed all our lives to hear 
the salvation of one's own soul pictured as the high- 
est object of human thought and effort, T, neverthe- 
less, for one believe that the position taken was 
essentially the right and Christian one. I believe 
that there is no nobler man or better follower of Jesus 
in this world than the man who comes nearest to 
forgetting even that he has a soul, in his earnest care 
to be faithful to his daily trusts, and to do good as 
he has opportunity. 

To live in this world primarily to gain salvation is 
essentially selfish. To be sure, it is selfishness on a 
little higher plane than it would be if one lived with 
the supreme object of getting money for himself. 
Yet it is selfishness nevertheless. The leading 
thought of such a life is me, me, escape from hell for 
me, admission to heaven for me. Friends, that is 
not the spirit of the gospel of Christ. The spirit of 
the gospel is not getting, but giving; it is not ab- 
sorption in self, but losing self; it is not me, but you, 
God, Christ, truth, my fellow-men, service, love, duty. 
I have it in my heart to say that securing for our- 
selves salvation in the world to come is none of our 
business. I should scarcely be speaking too strongly 
if I so said. All that is in God's hands. Our part 



THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 171 

is to do faithfully our present work, and God will 
take care of the rest. Heaven, if it come to us at all, 
will come as the result of our pure and right living, 
and not as the result of our faithless worrying about 
it, and our lifelong selfish seeking for it. Strange 
that it should ever fail to occur to any thoughtful 
mind that anxiety about death or heaven or hell or 
any of the things of the next world can have its 
origin only in distrust of God! Shame on us for 
such distrust ! 

Jesus said, "Take no thought for the morrow." 
Does not this include all to-morrow ? As well that 
supreme and endless to-morrow of the world we have 
not seen as the m^e swift-passing to-morrow of this 
earthly life ! 

O friends ! will the time never come when we 
shall have so much of confidence in Him who carries 
us always in His hand — nay, in His bosom — and who 
is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, that we 
shall not care to be perpetually withdrawing our eyes 
from the duties He has given us to do in this world, 
to make sure that He is going to be kind to us in the 
next? 

Will the time never arrive when our faith in Him 
will be so perfect that our only anxiety will be to do 
earnestly and well the work that God gives us to do 
in " the life that now is," sure, as we are sure of our 
own existence, that He will take care for us, a thou- 
sand times better than we can, of " the life that is to 
come"? 



IN WHAT SENSE IS JESUS A "SAVIOUR"? 



" Tliou shalt call his name Jesus [Saviour], for lie shall save 
his people from their sins." — Matthew i. 21. 

Very few words are more prominent in Christian 
literature and discourse than the word l i Saviour/ 7 and 
its cognate words " saved" and "salvation." But 
especially do we find this true ^vhen we approach 
the literature and discourse of revivals. Here these 
words shine out with the distinctness and promi- 
nence absolutely of a locomotive's head-light, fairly 
eclipsing everything else. In evangelical revival 
meetings generally, the leading object presented for 
love and worship is Jesus "the Saviour;" and the 
all-absorbing theme of sermons, exhortations, hymns, 
and prayers, the one thing urged upon the atten- 
tion of the people as incomparably more important 
to be thought about than anything else whatever, 
is u salvation" or " being saved " by Christ. This 
being the case, I come before you this morning with 
the suggestion that we spend an hour inquiring as 
candidly and earnestly as we can just what these 
words actually signify; that is to say, just in what 
sense Jesus is a " Saviour," just how it is that he 
" saves" men, and with what kind of a " salvation." 
In matters so important as these we ought to avoid 
confused ideas, and certainly we ought to avoid, 
false ideas if we possibly can. I do not know how 
any one can believe more earnestly than I believe in 



IN WHAT SENSE IS JESUS A " SAVIOUR " ? 173 

salvation, and in Jesus as a Saviour, in what seems 
to ine the plainly true and only true sense. But there 
is so much confusion and misapprehension in the 
public mind, that when men come to me talking and 
exhorting about these things, I find myself obliged 
to stop them and ask them what they mean, whether 
something real or something fanciful, whether some- 
thing true or something far enough from true. 

" To save" means, according to the best authori- 
ties in lexicography, to make safe; to procure the 
safety of; to preserve from injury or destruction or 
evil of any kind; to rescue from danger, as "to 
save a house from the flames." Its synonyms are, 
" to preserve, to rescue, to deliver, to protect, to pre- 
vent" Correspondingly, a " saviour " is one who 
saves, or makes safe, or preserves from injury, de- 
struction, or evil of any kind, or delivers from dan- 
ger, or protects from harm. And u salvation " is the 
act of thus saving, delivering, rescuing, preserving, 
protecting, from threatened or actual calamity or 
evil. Very well, then; if Jesus is one who, in auy 
true sense, saves men from some danger, harm, in- 
jury, evil, it is in place first of all for us to inquire 
what is that evil, injury, harm, danger, from which 
he saves ? 

To this question I shall reply first negatively, after- 
ward positively. To begin, then, negatively. First, 
he does not save, and never professed to save, from 
any guilt coming from Adam. And he does not save 
from such guilt, or profess to save from it, for the 
good reason, if no other, that there is no such guilt, 
and cannot be. It is a moral impossibility. To sup- 
pose that there can be such guilt is to suppose an 
utter confusion and perversion of moral laws — an 
utter overthrow of moral sequences and order. No 



174 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

man can be guilty for something with which he had 
nothing to do. For a man to be guilty he must be 
in some way a party to the wrong deed from which 
the guilt springs. But men living to-day are not a 
party to anything which Adam did ; and all talk of 
the theologians about his being the " federal head " 
or " representative w of the race, in any such sense as 
to make his act our act; or of our being, as Dr. 
Shedd and others put it, " potentially present in 
Adam," in any such sense as to make us responsible 
for what he did, as they claim, is nothing more nor 
less than an astounding instance of the substitution 
of empty words for ideas. Such a thing is unthink- 
able. That is certainly the most charitable construc- 
tion we can put upon it. If it be not unthinkable, it 
is monstrous. 

Why, if I am guilty for what Adam did six thou- 
sand years ago because he is my ancestor (and that 
is the ground, if any, on which it is held that we are 
guilty for his sin), then, much more must I be guilty 
for wrongs done by other ancestors of mine living 
nearer to me than six thousand years ago. So, then, 
if any of my ancestors have been thieves, I have to- 
day the guilt of theft resting on my soul ; if any have 
been murderers, I have the guilt of murder resting 
upon me. There is no escape from this conclusion. 
According to this principle of judgment and action, 
it would be right for government to punish not 
only every criminal, but all his children and descen- 
dants, for all time to come, for his crime. 

Now we all see in a moment that such ideas are 
simply insanity. They involve an utter perversion 
of all justice. A civil government or a family at- 
tempted to be conducted on such principles would 
shock the moral notions of everybody ; and yet, shall 



IN WHAT SENSE IS JESUS A " SAVIOUR " ? 175 

I say it, there are millions on millions of professed 
worshipers of God, inhabitants of enlightened coun- 
tries, who hold to exactly these principles as the 
basis of God's dealings with men. Conduct which 
would horrify them, if witnessed in their fellow-men, 
on no matter how small a scale, they claim God may 
indulge in on the scale of a whole world, and yet 
still be worthy of all worship as a just and holy be- 
ing. No, I say it was no part of the mission of Jesus 
to save men from the guilt of Adam's sin, for the 
simple reason that nobody was ever guilty for Adam's 
sin but Adam himself 5 as nobody ever was or ever 
will be guilty for any sin except the committer 
thereof. 

Do you say that the Bible declares that men are 
guilty for what Adam did ? I reply, there are some 
things which a thousand Bibles — nay, which the 
proclamation of a thousand angels could never make 
other than as they are. This question with which 
we have to do affects the very foundation on which 
all possibility of Bibles, or revelations, or moral 
government even, rests. Grant that guilt is some- 
thing which can be transferred from man to man, 
that one man may sin, and others in no way concerned 
in it, and even unborn, may be held responsible and 
called to account for it, and you have got a condition 
of things in which Bibles won't help us any ; a condi- 
tion of things in which the less we can know about 
God even — such a God — the better we are off. 

But, then, I deny that the Bible (certainly I deny 
that the Gospel portion of the Bible) teaches any 
such thing as the guilt of men to-day for what Adam 
did, or the guilt of anybody, ever, for anybody's sin 
but his own. I only wish I had time to take up and 
examine the leading passages of Scripture bearing 



176 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

on this point. But the course of thought that I have 
marked out for myself this morning will not allow it. 
I must, therefore, content myself with merely, in 
general terms, making this denial — that there is a 
single passage in the Gospels, or more truly inspired 
portions of the Bible, which, under correct interpre- 
tation, teaches this doctrine. 

Again, secondly, if Jesus does not save from the 
guilt of Adam's sin, neither does he save from eternal 
hell. In the first place, is it conceivable that men 
have ever done anything deserving of such punish- 
ment as that of an eternal perdition ? Is it con- 
ceivable that it is possible for men, within the bounds 
of an earthly lifetime, to do what would merit a 
doom so inconceivably dreadful ? Men talk of eter- 
nity as if it were a very brief and almost insignificant 
thing. But what really is it ? Who can think, or 
even begin to think, endlessness ? Stretch the wings 
of your thought ; expand your imagination to the 
utmost; picture to yourself the longest period of 
duration which you can possibly grasp, and yet 
what have you done ? Why, you have not yet touched 
the hem of the garment of eternity. As yet you are 
just laying your foot upon the first inch of a road 
that goes on and on and on, beyond hills and moun- 
tains and horizons multiplied into utter weariness. 
]STow, is it for a moment to be believed that God 
could in justice (and if he isn't just, he isn't any- 
thing) — is it for a moment to be believed that God 
could in justice cast men into a hell of torment, for 
a duration of time such as this that I have indicated, 
for the wrong-doings of a mere brief earthly life — 
a life which, compared to that eternity, is less than 
a single drop to the whole Atlantic, or a single grain 
of sand to a whole continent, or a single ray to all 



IN WHAT SENSE IS JESUS A " SAVIOUR " ? 177 

the billows of light that fill immensity ? And then, 
moreover, we must not forget that much of the sin- 
ning of men in this world is done with many, many 
palliatives. Men are ignorant; they do not know 
the full meaning of sin. They are short-sighted ; 
they do not see the full consequences that may come 
from their doings. They are frail and erring in their 
judgments ; often what seems a deliberate sin is only 
an error. They are weak ; they sadly fall often 
when they try to stand. They are, to a large extent, 
the children of circumstances, made what they are 
by forces over which they have little control. And 
now when we take into account all these palliating 
considerations, together with the brevity of the 
longest earthly life, surely we cannot but see tbat an 
eternity of punishment for the sins committed here 
would be as utterly out of proportion as it would be 
to water a violet by pouring a sea upon it ; or as it 
would be to take all the heat from the sun to kindle 
a rushlight, and thus destroy that luminary for the 
purpose ; nay, as it would be for an earthly parent 
to burn his child at the stake for laughing when it 
had been bidden not to laugh. 

I say, then, that it was no part of the mission of 
Jesus to save men from an endless hell, for the reason 
that there is not and cannot be any such thing to 
save them from. And here again I claim that I am 
in no way conflicting with the teachings of the Bible 
upon the subject, but going exactly in harmony with 
its teachings. To be sure there are a considerable 
number of passages which, in our common version, 
speak of a hell, and use the adjectives everlasting 
or eternal, or the expression forever and ever, in con- 
nection with it; but, I claim, in every case incor- 
rectly. I claim (and on authority the very best and 
8* 



178 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

highest) that the Bible nowhere teaches that God is 
going to punish any of his children endlessly. Here 
again, if I had but time, I would gladly go into de- 
tails. But I have not time. It would be idle to 
make an attempt to discuss the teachings of the Bible 
on the subject short of an entire sermon. 

I can only say, in general terms, that the teachings 
of the New Testament, and especially the teachings 
of Jesus, as to the nature and character of God, these 
alone, if there were nothing else, would effectually 
settle the question forever. If God be just, he can- 
not, as I have already shown, have decreed that men 
shall for their earthly transgressions suffer eternal 
torment. What then shall we say when to his jus- 
tice we add mercy, compassion, love, paternity, like 
yours and mine, only incomparably deeper, truer, 
richer? No, it is not from eternal hell that Jesus 
saves. 

Thirdly, he does not save from God's wrath, in any 
form, or in any true sense. It is supposable that 
men might be under God's wrath, on account of their 
sins, even if that wrath were not going to pursue 
them to the extent of damning them eternally. But 
even though this were supposable, I contend it is not 
and never has been the fact. Surely Jesus does not 
teach anything of the kind. I grant that the Old 
Testament conception of God — at least the concep- 
tion of the writers of the earlier parts of the Old Tes- 
tament — was that he is a being of like passions with 
men; a being who could repent and change his 
mind, and who was sometimes jealous and revenge- 
ful, and often angry. But the New Testament con- 
ception, especially the conception that Jesus him- 
self had, is vastly higher. Jesus represents to us 
God as not like fallible men, but as perfect in all 



IN WHAT SENSE IS JESUS A " SAVIOUR " ? 179 

things. He is no longer a God who changes his 
mind, or is jealous or revengeful or from time to 
time angry. Instead, he is, beyond our utmost con- 
ception, powerful, wise, holy, just, and good. Can. 
we conceive a perfect being as angry? Does not 
anger imply imperfection ? Isn't an angry mind a 
mind in a state other than its highest, its best, 
its most perfect state ? 

Moreover, if it were consistent with God's perfec- 
tion to be angry, still how can we conceive him to 
be angry with his own children ? If I tell you of 
any earthly parent who is angry with his children, 
you will think of hitn at once as something other 
and less than what a parent ought to be. You in- 
stinctively feel that a father has no right to get 
angry with his child. Shall we then allow ourselves 
to think of God — our Father — as angry ever with 
his children? An earthly parent may be pained, 
grieved, hurt sorely by the conduct of a child. All 
this is consistent with love, and with all proper 
paternal feeling toward the child. But just in the 
degree that anger comes in love dies, and all feelings 
of true paternity wither. So also we must conceive 
it to be with God. Pure, true, perfect love is never 
angry, and never can be, in earth or heaven or hell, 
in man or God, any more than heat can ever freeze, 
or light become of a black color ; because love and 
anger are in their very natures incongruities, oppo- 
sites. But God is love — perfect love. God is a 
father, a pure, holy, ever-loving, infinitely-loving 
father. So at least Jesus taught, and taught always, 
with more iteration, with more emphasis, than he ever 
put upon any other of his teachings. Where then is 
there room for anger in God ? 

There is no room for it. He who says there is 



180 OETHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

anger in the bosom of God toward his earthly chil- 
dren ever, not only ignores but contradicts the very 
first and most prominent of all the teachings of 
Jesus about him. I am not willing thus to contradict 
Jesus. On the contrary, I for one have no hesitancy 
in accepting the clear, strong declarations of the 
Founder of our Christianity, that the All-Father sees 
with sorrow, but not with wrath, the sinning of his 
children on the earth, and, even in the case of the 
most hardened and profligate of them, stands all 
the day long waiting for their return, ready at any 
moment to meet them while yet a great way off, and 
receive them back with joy and great rejoicing. 

I say then that Jesus had it for no part of his 
work to save men from God's wrath. True, sinning 
men doubtless have reason, in a deep and real sense, 
to fear God. But it is not his anger that they have 
reason to fear ; it is something very far removed from 
that, viz., it is his justice ; and not his justice in 
the theological sense either, but his justice as re- 
vealed in the naturally and inevitably harmful con- 
sequences of the breaking of wise and right laws, 
moral and other. 

But, if Jesus undertook to save men from none of 
these things mentioned, neither from guilt imputed 
to them from Adam, nor from an eternal hell, nor 
from God's anger in any form — the things in which 
the Christian Church has long taught his salvation 
primarily to consist — then from what did he under- 
take to save ? 

Coming to the positive side of the subject, I an- 
swer: He undertook to save men from just those 
evils which were most severely pressing upon, most 
bruising, most fearfully crushing down their spirits 
and actual lives ; that is to say, he undertook to save 



IN WHAT SENSE IS JESUS A " SAVIOUR " ? 181 

men from real evils, and not from such merely im- 
aginary or speculative ones as the theologies would 
have us believe. In other words, his salvation was 
intensely earnest, intensely practical, intensely of 
the present time. 

It was a saving of the man himself, in all that 
makes up his entire being. " What shall it profit a 
man if he gain the whole world and lose himself? " 

1. To be specific, Jesus first of all sought to save 
men from ignorance. 

He was painfully conscious that men were in dark- 
ness, especially as regarded the whole realm of moral 
and spiritual truth. He went about as a light, teach- 
ing ever and everywhere — sowing the truth broad- 
cast with a hand that never tired or withheld. And 
so earnest was he in this that he enjoined it upon all 
his followers that they should constitute themselves 
lamps to shed abroad further still the light which 
they had caught from him. 

The particular kinds of ignorance which he was 
most earnest to dispel from men's minds were two : 
first, ignorance about God, and second, ignorance 
about themselves. And oh ! what a mighty work did 
he accomplish in both these directions ! What reve- 
lations he made to men concerning God ! What 
revelations he made to them concerning themselves ! 
What a work would Jesus have done for the world 
if he had accomplished nothing else than teaching 
the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men ! 
What salvation the revelation of these truths alone 
would have been ! 

2. But, furthermore, he sought also to save men 
from fear. This is involved really in salvation from 
ignorance, for ignorance is the mother of fear. Yet 
practically the two may be spoken of separately. 



182 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

Look at the world as it was wlien Jesus came into it 
— full everywhere of fear of supernatural powers. 
Everywhere altars were smoking to propitiate 
vengeful deities. Storms in the heavens, and storms 
on the earth, were all works of the displeasure of 
these deities. Such a thing as disinterested love to 
men on the part of God was scarcely dreamed of. 
The great and almost only thought was to gain the 
favor or avert the wrath of the awful beings above, 
by contrivances, penances, propitiations, purchases, 
atonements, often of blood and great suffering. Men 
feared to die and feared to live. The heavens were 
brass over their heads. The future was dark as 
night. ISTo infinite Father bent over the world in 
mercy and love ; but, instead, above all were vengeful, 
jealous, dreadful powers. Now from all this Jesus 
sought to save men. These unworthy, horrible beliefs 
about God he dispelled. The dark curtain which 
superstition had hung before men's eyes he tore away, 
and bade them see God not as a being to be dreaded, 
cowered before, propitiated by suffering and blood, 
but a being to be loved and adored ; not an infinite 
Moloch or Jove or Thor, but the embodiment of all 
that is highest, worthiest, best. Thus fear was slain. 
With no longer dreadful deities, but a Father at the 
head of all things, what was there longer to fear ? 
Oh! the transformation! Oh! how the shadows 
lifted ! How the night fled away ! How the sun- 
shine came in, and with it joy and hox>e ! Life was 
no longer the same life. The world was no longer 
the same world. Fear, which before had hid in 
every cloud, and lurked in the shadow of every bush, 
and whispered out of every sound, and beset men 
behind and before from cradle to grave, was dead, 
and assurance and peace came in its place. And 



IN WHAT SENSE IS JESUS A " SAVIOUR " ? 183 

tliis was an essential and important part of the 
salvation which Jesus brought to men. Friends, was 
it not in so far a real salvation? Was it not a salva- 
tion glorious, priceless in value, worthy of him and 
of the God whom he worshiped? True, a large part 
of Christendom to-day will not have it ; but persist, 
in spite of all that Jesus did and said, in clothing 
God in garments of darkness and immoralities and 
wrath, and in nursing in their own breasts, instead of 
joy and hope and trust, the old doubt and trembling 
and fear. Alas for them ! But the fault is not with 
Jesus. 

3. Finally, and most important of all, Jesus sought 
to save men from sinning, Not only did he seek to 
save from ignorance, moral and spiritual, with all 
that that involved, and from fear, with all that 
meant ; but more earnestly still did he seek to save 
from the awful guilt and tyranny and consequences 
of sinning. He looked about him, and everywhere he 
saw his fellow-beings doing, oftenest thoughtlessly, 
but often deliberately, things that they knew to 
be wrong — wrong toward themselves, wrong toward 
their fellows, wrong toward God. The sight pained 
him most deeply. He knew that this wrong-doing 
w r as withering men's souls, stealing from them their 
birthright, feeding the beast but murdering the angel 
that was in them. Could he not do something for 
them ? He would try. Here was man's deepest 
ruin. Here it was that more than anywhere else the 
race needed and must have rescue. Jesus would give 
his life to the work of seeking to save the lost. 
He would go forth among his sinning brothers, 
and by every eloquence of love persuade them to 
abandon their wrong-doing. He would go down to 
the lowest and vilest, and dedicate what strength 



184 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

the Father should give him to lifting up his fallen 
brothers into holiness of life and purity of heart. 
Long ago, to his yet virgin mother, said the legend, 
an angel had announced his birth, moreover com- 
manding beforehand that his name should be called 
Jesus — Saviour— because, promised the angel, " He 
shall save his people from their sins." So he would 
live and die with the mission supreme in his heart 
to save his brothers, not simply from moral and 
spiritual ignorance, though this were much ; nor yet 
from dark fear and distrust of God alone, though 
this were much ; but, most important of all, from 
sinning. 

But, do you ask, how would he do this ? How did 
he actually undertake to save men from sinning in 
his day, and how does he save men now? If you 
would discover, you have only to look about you, as 
Jesus looked about him. You see men sinning on 
every hand, as he saw men sinning on every hand. 
Men are much the same now that they were then. 
Sin is essentially the same thing now that it was 
then. Men have to be saved essentially the same 
way now as then. How are men saved nowadays 
from unholiness to holiness, from evil lives to good 
lives, from wrong-doing to right-doing, from sinning 
to purity of thought and action % That is the vital 
question, if you would understand Jesus and his 
work as a Saviour. 

There are at least three potencies which may be 
employed in this saving of men. These potencies 
have always been operative and always will be. They 
are instruction, example, and love. 

First, instruction. Men need to be taught the nature 
of sin — its essential ugliness, wickedness, and hurtful- 
ness to all with whom it has to do. If men can only 



IN WHAT SENSE IS JESUS A " SAVIOUR " ? 185 

be made to understand it, and see it as it is, much 
has been done in the direction of getting them to 
abandon it. Men will hardly embrace a serpent when 
they really see it to be a serpent. They will hardly 
put their hand into the fire when they know they will 
be burned if they do. 

The second powerful instrumentality in saving 
men from sin is example. It is strangely easy and 
natural, seemingly, to do what we see others do. 
Whether there is any sense in it or not, whether it 
will benefit us or harm us, it often makes compara- 
tively little difference ; if only others about us do it, 
we do it. So great is the power of example. Said a 
recent English writer : " You want your neighbors 
to sweep their doorsteps. Don't go and ask them, 
but simply go quietly and sweep your own. In a 
day or two your next-door neighbor will notice that 
yours is swept, and will sweep hers. Then your 
neighbor on the other side will notice your step and 
the step next on the opposite side clean, and so she 
will sweep hers. Thus the contagion will- spread ; 
and in a little while, without a word said by any- 
body, all the steps in the neighborhood will be 
swept." Now, this power of example is a mighty 
potency, more mighty than is often dreamed, to be 
employed in the work of saving men from sin. 

The third instrumentality in saving men is love — 
pure and worthy love. Let me deeply and truly love 
a good person, and that love will be an influence of 
immense power, ever drawing me back from evil, and 
urging me in the direction of goodness. Probably 
there is no greater saving potency acting in society 
than this. 

A talented, but wild, idle, morally worthless young 
Englishman fell in love with a pure, cultured, noble 



186 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

young woman of a highly excellent family. That 
love saved him. Eestored to his right mind by the 
healthful power of it, he renounced his idleness, threw 
away his wine, deserted his gay companions, went 
away to Edinburgh University, took every prize for 
which he was allowed to compete, came back, mar- 
ried the young lady whose love had transformed him 
from an idle rake into a man, and, under the inspira- 
tion of her purity and worth, rose to be one of the 
greatest philanthropists and most honored men of 
England. Such is a single illustration of the saving 
power of a pure, high love. I care not how low men 
may be sunken in sin, if I can get them to love, and 
love upward, I have hope for them. Those cords of 
affection reaching from the heart out and up to 
purer, worthier beings, will have a power to save 
that can scarcely be over-estimated. 

Now how did Jesus undertake to save men from 
sinful to holy living? I answer, in precisely the 
ways just indicated. Precisely by laying hold of 
each and all of these three moral potencies which I 
have pointed out. First, lie taught men; second, lie 
set them an example ,• third, he loved, and won their 
love. What more could he do J What more needed 
he to do ? Here we have the three mightiest levers 
possible to be used for the moral and spiritual eleva- 
tion of human beings. And with what power he 
employed each and all of the three ! 

He taught men, as they had never been taught be- 
fore, the nature of sin ; how foul and useless and 
hateful to God, and necessarily damning to men it 
is ; and the nature of holiness ; how fair and right 
and beautiful and blessed to men, and well-pleasing 
to God it is. 

By example he wooed men. What an example it 



IN WHAT SENSE IS JESUS A " SAVIOUR " ? 187 

was he set, both to his own and to all succeeding 
times ! How it shines to-day ! Never was the beauty 
of holiness and the divineness of unsullied, genuine 
manhood set forth with such power as in his life. 
Never did the ghastly ugliness of sin so clearly ap- 
pear as when contrasted with the singular purity and 
perfectness of his character. He drew all eyes unto 
him while he lived. He is doing so still. Thus have 
arisen the beginnings of new and nobler life to untold 
millions of the human race ; for who can ever be quite 
the same again after having once really looked upon 
that marvelous life of Jesus ? 

But not only did he teach by word and inspire by 
example ; he also, as I have said, completed his work 
by laying hold of men's hearts with the well-nigh 
irresistible power of a great, burning, purely unself- 
ish love. 

Oh ! the potency of that strange something which 
we call love ! Who understands it ? Who can mea- 
sure its heights and depths, or tell the strength 
of its unseen chains, even as it exists in the most or- 
dinary of human beings ? What, then, shall we say 
of a love like that which must have throbbed in the 
great heart of Jesus, and shone out from his every 
act and word and look ? I confess it seems to me no- 
thing marvelous at all, that that love of Jesus caught 
and kindled to a flame, as it did in the hearts of his 
disciples, and from them caught again in the hearts 
of others, and ever perpetuated itself and widened 
as time went on. And can any one fail to see what 
a measureless potency for salvation there is and for- 
ever must be in such a love ? 

But enough. Time forbids that I should go fur- 
ther. I have answered, as well as the brief space of a 
single sermon will allow me to do, the questions with 



188 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

which I set out — In what sense is Jesus a Saviour ? 
From what and how did he undertake to save men ? 

I have answered that the salvation which he labor- 
ed to effect was not (a) from the guilt of Adam's trans- 
gression ; nor (b) from an eternal hell ; nor (c) from 
the wrath of God in any form or sense. It was, 
first, from moral and spiritual ignorance; second, 
from fear, especially fear of God ; and third, and 
most important, from sinning. 

And to effect this salvation for his brother men, 
he employed three instrumentalities : (1) teaching 
or truth ; (2) the power of example, the example of 
a pure and noble life ; and (3) love. 

And it was by the potency of these instrumentali- 
ties that he accomplished what he did in his own 
day, and set in operation the influences which have 
worked so mightily for human salvation since. In 
other words, these are the channels, as I conceive 
them, through which he wrought out the grand work 
which gave him a right to the name of Saviour. 

And now, friends, I appeal to you, have we not 
here a sense in which the salvation of Jesus becomes 
a thing of reality ; a thing which we can see reason 
in ; a thing which we can lay hold of; a thing of true 
grandeur ; and no longer, like the commonly re- 
ceived idea of salvation, a thing of mysticism, a 
speculation, an unreasonable and really God-dis- 
honoring thing — spun out of the metaphysical brains 
of Augustine and Calvin and Edwards, and foisted 
on the Christian Church in ages darker than ours ? 
With these views, have w r e not in Jesus a Saviour 
worthy of the best achievements of our Christianity ; 
a Saviour who commends himself to every think- 
ing human mind, and every loving, reverent human 
heart? 



IN WHAT SENSE IS JESUS A " SAVIOUR "? 189 

But the question is asked me, If these views be 
true, is Jesus the world's only saviour ? I answer, 
by no means. Were he the world's only saviour, 
transcendent as has been his power for good, we 
should all be in a sad condition to-day. For where 
then would be all the array of noble men and women 
of the past, who have made all the ages glorious by 
devoting their lives to the same objects to which he 
so self-forgettingly and so heroically devoted his 
life ? No ! Rather every one, in all lands and times, 
who has done anything to lead up the race out of ig- 
norance and superstition of fear and sin, into greater 
light and hope and holiness, has been, in the deepest 
and only true sense of the word, a saviour, and as 
such has labored side by side with Jesus. 

Is Jesus the world's greatest saviour? I can 
only reply, I believe 1m is. Most or all of you who 
hear me to-day believe he is. The more civilized 
portion of the world with almost a unanimous voice 
have pronounced him to be. This, then, for our pur- 
pose, at least, is enough. Surely this makes it right 
ajid fitting that we should call him to-day the 
Saviour, and give him honor and reverence and love 
as such now and evermore. 



SOME RELIGIOUS LESSONS TO BE LEARNED 
FROM SCIENTISTS. 



"Honor to every man that worketh good." — Romans ii. 10. 

To-NiGrHT, as has been announced, we listen to the 
first of a series of six popular scientific lectures to 
be delivered on successive Sunday evenings in this 
church. As introductory to these, it has seemed to 
me that I could not do a more appropriate or use- 
ful thing than ask your attention this morning to 
some religious lessons which I think are to be learned 
by our age from science and scientists. I have long 
been convinced that there is no necessary hostility 
between religion and science. STay, more than that, 
I have long been convinced that, on the one hand, 
science has no better friend than true religion, and, 
on the other, that true religion has no better friend 
than real science. And when I see science and re- 
ligion clenching fists, or scowling, or even looking 
coldly at each other (sights which, I regret to say, 
we are all called upon to witness on every side and 
almost every day), for one, I cannot but feel that the 
condition of things is strangely and most lamenta- 
bly wrong. In the first place, I always very strongly 
suspect that the party which does the fist-clenching 
or the frowning, whether it be religion or science, 
really isn't the genuine thing, but instead is a pseudo- 
religion or a pseudo-science, and hence feels, with good 
reason, that the opposite genuine thing is antago- 



RELIGIOUS LESSONS LEARNED FROM SCIENTISTS. 191 

nistic to it. Or, if it be itself the genuine thing, then 
I more than suspect that the thing which it does its 
frowning at isn't genuine. It sees something wearing 
the garb of science or religion, which it takes to be a 
foe, and so throws itself into an attitude of antagon- 
ism, crying out, " Science, you are all of the devil," 
or, " Eeligionj you are all a debasing superstition," 
and strikes out with fierce, blind blows. But if it 
only would be patient and penetrating, and not show 
fight until it had time to look underneath the garb, 
it would find that its opponent is not what it calls it 
at all, and so it would be saved the trouble of fight- 
ing, or, if it did fight, it would no longer do so 
in a foolish way, as one who beats the air, or in a 
self-injuring way, as one who beats a stone. 

Genuine science and true religion, seeing clearly, 
eye to eye, discern in each other no antagonism. 
Heaven speed the time when they shall come to see 
eye to eye, as only to a very limited extent they 
are able to yet. I would not supplant the teachings 
of Jesus or Paul or David by the teachings of Tyn- 
dall or Darwin or Agassiz. Such supplanting to 
any considerable extent would, I think, be lamenta- 
ble. But I would, if I could, supplement the teach- 
ings of Jesus and Paul and David by the teachings, 
and what seems to me the moral and religious teach- 
ings, of these men of science. 

And first of all in the direction of love for truth. 
Of course it is true of scientists, as of all other classes 
of men, that every flock has its black sheep. There 
are persons claiming the name of scientists who are 
mere partisans, mere special pleaders, who plainly 
care nothing for truth as truth, but only for their 
own pet theories about the truth, whose writings 
and lecturings are as one-sided as a single half of a 



192 ORTHODOXY AND BEVIVALISM. 

pair of shears detached from the other half. But 
these are the exception, and by no means the lead- 
ing and representative scientists of the age. The 
men who have won their way to the front ranks of 
science, and who are recognized by scientists them- 
selves as authorities, are far different men. They 
are, as a class — and every intelligent and unbiased 
mind will bear me out in saying it — men of not simply 
average, but of really extraordinary, candor, fair- 
ness, devotion to truth ; so much so that it seems 
eminently fitting that they should be held up and 
pointed to by every one interested in the teaching of 
morals and religion, as, in this particular at least, 
men to be honored and imitated. I think there is 
something about original scientific investigation cal- 
culated to make men fair and truth-loving. Scien- 
tific investigators understand in the beginning, and 
in all their researches they are finding out if possi- 
ble more thoroughly still, that nothing but truth 
will stand, or is in any respect worth a straw. Facts 
are facts ; they won't change themselves one iota to 
please any man, or to accommodate any theory. They 
are stubborn as mules ; and would just as lief kick 
over the most magnificent hypothesis or generaliza- 
tion as not. So that every scientist knows that the 
only hope there is for him that his work will endure, 
rests upon the condition of its being absolutely truth- 
ful work. Facts and realities, the things which ac- 
tually are, form a foundation of rock and an edifice 
of granite ; but anything else forms a foundation 
of sand and a superstructure of cobs. Why then 
should not the scientist be a man whom we should 
expect to find as candid and honest and truthful as 
any man in the world — a fit man to be an example 
in these things to us all ? 



KELIGIOTTS LESSONS LEARNED FROM SCIENTISTS. 193 

Said Professor Tyndall, in introducing Professor 
Huxley at Belfast, at the time the latter gave his 
celebrated lecture on "Animals as Automatons" be- 
fore the British Association, " I do not know what 
my friend's message to you will be to-night, but this 
I do know, that it will be the message of a man lov- 
ing truth above all things." Could there be higher 
praise? Said Niebuhr, the father of modern histori- 
cal science, " We must preserve our truthfulness in 
science so pure that we must eschew absolutely every 
false appearance ; that we must not write the small- 
est thing as certain of which we are not fully con- 
vinced; that when we have to express a conjecture, 
we must strenuously endeavor to exhibit the precise 
degree of probability we attach to it. We must our- 
selves indicate our own errors where possible, even 
such as it is unlikely that any one will discover. 
When we lay down our pen, we must be able to say 
in the sight of God, 'Upon strict examination, I 
have not knowingly written anything that is not 
true, and have never deceived, either as regarding 
myself or others ; I have not exhibited my most in- 
veterate opponent in any light which I could not jus- 
tify upon my death-bed.'" Noble words of a noble 
man! and a man, too, who is not an unfair represen- 
tative, I am glad to believe, of the leading scientists 
of modern times. 

I do not think the writings of any other man have 
so impressed me, by their exhibition of candor and 
sacred regard for absolute fairness and precise truth, 
as the writings of Mr. Darwin. Is the position of an 
adversary to be stated by him ? It is stated with the 
greatest possible carefulness, that there may be no 
unfairness of representation. Is an attempt made to 
prove a position of his own ? Not only are the argu- 



194 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

ments in its favor enumerated, but, also, with the 
greatest fullness and fairness, those which militate 
against it; and you are asked to make up no verdict, 
except in view of all the facts that can be obtained 
on both and all sides. 1 have often thought that he 
is, if possible, even more careful to state fully and 
in their strongest light the arguments which weigh 
against his own positions, than he is the arguments 
which weigh in their favor. 

Now, such a trait of mind as this in any man is ad- 
mirable, and cannot be too highly appreciated and 
commended. Gladly do I hold it up in a Christian 
pulpit and say, " Let us all emulate it." Whether 
we are prepared to accept Mr. Darwin as right with 
regard to that particular scientific theory which bears 
his name or not, I see no reason why we should not 
at least gladly receive him, in so far as this point 
under consideration is concerned, as a teacher of 
morals and religion. To learn to be as religiously 
fair and honest and truthful as Mr. Darwin, would 
be a great grace in any man. Nor, as I have inti- 
mated, is Mr. Darwin peculiar in this thing. On the 
contrary, you may almost measure a scientific man's 
eminence by his conscientiousness and fidelity to 
truth. I only wish that the eminent religious leaders 
and teachers of our times were as truly disciples of 
Jesus in this thing as are our scientists. But I have a 
fear that, as a class, they are not. Unquestionably 
some of them are as honest and truth-loving as men 
can be. But I have a bitter fear that, weighed in the 
balance with the men who have given their lives to 
searching in the darkness and quarrying in untrod- 
den wildernesses for truth, and who, from the chaos 
of ignorance and superstition which a little while ago 
was, have built the orderly and beautiful cosmos of 



KELIGIOTTS LESSONS LEARNED FROM SCIENTISTS. 195 

science that now is, — I say I have a sad and bitter 
fear that, weighed in the balance with these men, our 
religious teachers of past and present, as a class, 
would be found wanting in this matter. As devotees 
to sects and theologies ; as exponents and defenders 
of views and doctrines and systems of doctrine, in 
most cases unquestionably believed to be true, doubt- 
less our religious teachers have been and are unsur- 
passed. But in devotion, not to this or that aspect 
or branch or view of truth, but to truth as truth, in 
all its breadth, and left free to lead where it may, I 
have little doubt in my own mind that, hard as it is 
for us to make the confession, we, as religious men, 
must in honesty make it, that the laurel crown 
belongs of right to the scientists and not to us. To 
learn this part of religion, viz., honesty, candor, fair- 
ness to opponents, regard for exact truth, devotion 
to truth wherever it leads, there is scarcely room for 
question but that it is more fitting that we should 
go and sit at their feet, than that they should come 
and sit at ours. 

Another lesson that we, as religious people, would 
do well to learn from the scientists is, the lesson 
of patient and earnest devotion to work. St. James 
says, u Let patience have her perfect work." I know 
of nowhere that patience comes so near to having 
her perfect work as in the building up of science. 
The patience and perseverance and devotion to labor, 
seen in a large proportion of the promoters of all 
branches of science in this and the past ages, have 
been astonishing — scarcely less than heroic. Here is 
a man who dedicates his life to enlarging and perfect- 
ing the science of botany. What does that mean ? 
It means giving up all dreams of wealth and luxury, 
and even to a considerable extent of comfort. It 



196 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

means, in large measure, isolation from society; much 
absence from borne and family ; traveling on foot, 
amid bardsbips and privations, over States, countries, 
continents ; and, withal, toil in the retirement of bis 
study more continued and severe than any but the 
few who have been admitted inside the circle have 
the faintest conception of. And all that he may add 
something to the stock of human knowledge. It is a 
noble devotion. 

Another sets for himself the task of finding out 
about that wonderful department of creation — the 
birds. And what do we see ? We see him, like 
Audubon or Wilson, virtually taking up his abode 
in the forest ; and for whole decades of years hardly 
knowing what it is to meet civilized men, or taste 
the commonest comforts of a civilized home. An- 
other devotes his life, with equal ardor and patience 
and self-abnegation, to the study of so small a thing 
as the bee, and with results of vast benefit to the 
world. Another, still, chooses chemistry, or some 
small department of chemistry, and toils on inde- 
fatigably in his laboratory, year after year, unknown 
and uncared for by the great world, little by little 
the wrinkles coming into his brow and the silver 
threads into his hair, and at last, very likely, passing 
away almost as unnoticed as, the falling of a tree in 
the woods ; but yet content that it should be so, be- 
cause he is able, by this patient toil and heroic devo- 
tion — I had almost said immolation — to leave behind 
him, if not a name, what is better, some additions to 
his dearly-loved science. 

And this is the w r ay that the splendid edifice of 
our modern science has been built up — by a patience, 
a perseverance, an earnestness, a self-forgetting and 
quiet devotion to work, which are as admirable as 



RELIGIOUS LESSONS LEARNED FROM SCIENTISTS. 197 

anything of the kind that the whole history of the 
world has to show. Now, these are precisely traits 
of character which Jesus and Paul commended as 
going to make tip perfect character. Why should 
not we also recognize them as such ? Why should 
not I, as a Christian teacher, and why should not 
you, as Christian men and women, often and earnestly 
hold up these men of science, who so nobly illustrate 
these characteristics, as examples to be religiously 
admired and imitated % 

Another lesson which the scientists are doing, per- 
haps more than any other class of men, to teach this 
age, and which many of us as religionists would do 
well to let them teach us, is the lesson that there is 
something better to live for than merely to gam pecuni* 
ary wealth. When Professor Agassiz was approached 
by an eminent so-called practical man, and urged to 
turn his remarkable talents for scientific lecturing to 
account in accumulating a fortune, what was the 
business man's surprise on being replied to by the 
man of science, u But, my dear sir, I have no time 
to waste in making money!" "ISTo time to waste 
in making money ! r Said President Andrew D. 
White, in speaking of this declaration of Professor 
Agassiz : u I have stood in the presence of a very 
eminent man of affairs, one whose word is a power 
in the great marts of the world, and watched him as 
for the first time he heard this astonishing dictum. 
He stood silent, apparently in awe. The words 
seemed to reverberate among the convolutions of 
his brain, and to be re-echoed far away, back, from 
depth to depth, among the deep recesses of his con- 
sciousness. i No time to waste in making money ! ? 
The thought was a revelation to that man, as it has 
been to a great many other meu." It would be hard 



198 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

to point to any utterance of our times that strikes 
such a numbing, staggering blow at the sordid ma- 
terialism and mammon- worship, which is so much 
the characteristic and bane of our age and civil- 
ization, as this grand declaration of our American 
scientist. No time to waste in making money ! 
Something infinitely better to live for than to get 
rich ! That is precisely what Professor Agassiz and 
the thousands of others who were his co-laborers in 
science have been teaching us, and constantly and 
forever teaching us ; not simply by the utterance of 
their lips, but by the far more eloquent utterances 
of their whole lives. Taking for their text the 
words of Jesus, u Is not the life more than meat, and 
the body than raiment," no preachers of modern 
times have preached more powerfully, nor, as I be- 
lieve, more effectively than they. Is it not time that 
we, as religious people, gave them due recognition 
and honor for it 1 

Another religious lesson, which I think the scien- 
tists of modern times are well qualified to teach us 
all, is that of sincerity. Another still is that of 
thoroughness; but upon these I will not enlarge. 
The lesson of bravery or moral courage, too, I think 
w r e may well go to them to learn. I know of no 
braver men — brave on the highest plane of bravery 
— than the long line of martyrs to science which 
history tells us of. Some religious martyrs have 
doubtless shown a bravery as great, and endured a 
martyrdom as noble. This is as much, however, it 
seems to me, as truth allows any one to say. The 
religious martyr of the best type may be placed 
side by side with the martyr of science of the best 
type ; but as to placing him one whit above, I think 
the time has passed by for that. Both die for truth ; 



RELIGIOUS LESSONS LEARNED FROM SCIENTISTS. 199 

both die for conscience' sake. Who shall say that one 
is nobler than the other ! Vastly enriched will Chris- 
tianity be in its inheritances from the past, when it 
shall have added to its roll of saints all men who 
have lived to do good, and to its roll of martyrs all 
who have died for truth. Bravery ! Moral courage! 
No class of men on the earth, except it be the ad- 
vanced rank of religious thinkers, have had to fight 
anything like so hard a campaign, so long a cam- 
paign, a campaign against such odds, as have scien- 
, tists since the day science had its birth until now. 
Well has a recent writer called the campaigns of a 
Cresar, a Napoleon, a Moltke, absolutely petty when 
compared with it. Bravery ! If old Eoger Bacon 
was not brave; if Copernicus and Galileo and 
Kepler and Giordano Bruno and the early astron- 
omers were not brave ; if Andreas Vesalius, the 
founder of the modern science of anatomy, was not 
brave ; if Boyer, the introducer of inoculation as a 
preventive of small-pox, and Jenner, the discoverer 
of vaccination, were not brave ; if the pioneers of 
geology and ethnology and every other science have 
not been brave, then is there no bravery to be found 
on the earth. Now, bravery of the kind which these 
men exhibited, bravery on the high plane of the 
moral, which manifests itself in battling for free- 
dom and right and truth, is something to be com- 
mended and cultivated as an element of perfect 
character. No religion is perfect which does not 
teach it. It is eminently Christian, if by Christian 
we mean what Jesus by lip and life taught ; for 
when did the world ever see a braver soul than the 
Teacher of Nazareth? The kind of bravery exhib- 
ited by these men whom I have named, and by the 
men who have fought the battle of science generally, 



200 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

has been precisely of the kind exhibited by Jesus — ■ 
bravery against conventionalism and superstition and 
error and for the truth. Why, then, shall we honor 
him, and not in their degree honor them ? Or why in 
him shall we call his bravery one of the seven colored 
rays which go to make up the white light of his re- 
ligion, and in them allow a similar bravery no con- 
nection with religion at all ? No, if the man, perfect 
after the measure of the stature of Christ, is of neces- 
sity a morally brave man — a man always and every- 
where brave for the truth and right, then I have no 
hesitancy in pointing to the long line of men whose 
good brain-swords have won from the empire of night 
the whole realm of our modern science, and saying, 
" Learn from them how to be religiously brave." 

A final lesson which I think we may all learn from 
the scientists is the lesson of faith. Of course not, 
if by faith we mean w T hat seems to be so often meant 
by it, mere believing without evidence or reason, 
mere blind credulity. Science neither teaches nor 
tolerates anything of that kind. For that kind of 
faith we must go to so-called religion. But if by 
faith we mean a belief which is based primarily upon 
evidence ; a belief which is the consummate flower 
of knowledge ; a belief which does no shutting of 
eyes, but which instead stretches its vision to ever 
higher and larger things ; a belief which is only 
widest-seeing, clearest- seeing, furthest-seeing; if that 
is what we mean by faith (and nothing poorer or less 
than that ought we ever to mean by it), then I 
claim, without hesitation or fear, that religion, so far 
from branding science as skeptical and atheistic, as 
we find her constantly doing, may well herself go and 
sit dow^n at the feet of science and learn faith. The 
history of religion has been a constant fear; the his- 



RELIGIOUS LESSONS LEAKNED FROM SCIENTISTS. 201 

tory of science has been a constant hope and trust. 
We cannot go back to the time when religious men 
were not apprehensive lest some new light of knowl- 
edge might in some way be harmful to religion. 
Every step of the onward march of science, as Dr. 
Draper has shown in his volume on " The Conflict 
between Eeligion and Science/' and as President 
White has shown, perhaps better still, in articles in 
the Science Monthly, has been made in the teeth of 
opposition from religious men. Physical geography, 
astronomy, chemistry and physics, anatomy and 
medicine, geology, meteorology, cartography, in- 
dustrial and agricultural science, political economy 
and social science and scientific education have all 
had to fight their way against powerful and per- 
sistent religious opposition. What was the secret of 
this opposition? It was not that there is anything 
in science that is necessarily anti-religious. It was 
simply the faithlessness of religious men. Just that. 
The men who opposed science and every incoming 
of new knowledge lacked that true and large faith 
which the scientific men have as a rule all the while 
had, that high and holy faith which sees truth and 
goodness to be inseparable, and which believes that 
He who planned all things has forbidden any earnest 
search after knowledge to lead to lasting evil. The 
religious teachers who have been forever charging 
the teachers of science with skepticism have them- 
selves been the skeptics, in that they have not be- 
lieved, as the scientists as a class have believed, that 
there is " a Power in the universe strong enough, 
large enough, good enough, to make thorough search 
for truth safe in every line of investigation." Nor 
are things more than partially changed in this mat- 
ter now. Every intelligent man knows it to be true 
9* 



202 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

that to hold to-day certain scientific doctrines — doc- 
trines, moreover, which the ablest scientists of the 
world have either adoj)ted or else seemingly are fast 
working their way toward adopting, is to place one's 
self under the religious ban, not only of Catholicism, 
but of a large part of Protestantism. For example, 
call a man a Darwinian, or a disciple of Herbert 
Spencer, and, in this good year, 1876, you shut pul- 
pits against him; you shut lecture courses against 
him ; you shut college professorships against him ; 
and even there are cases where you shut places of 
public and political trust against him. I speak what 
I do know. Now what does such blind prejudice 
against new scientific doctrines mean ? It means at 
bottom skepticism. That is the most rational and 
the most charitable explanation I can give of it. It 
means at bottom nothing less than a fear that some- 
how religion is going to suiter from the revelations 
of science. Can any one give any other explana- 
tion ? If our religious teachers and leaders had suf- 
ficient faith in God and truth — if they really and 
with all the earnestness of their souls believed, as 
one of our American scientists has said, " that there 
is a Power in this universe strong enough to make 
truth-seeking safe, and good enough to make truth- 
telling useful," and this always and everywhere, 
would they maintain the attitude to science that so 
many of them do ? 

So then you see what I mean when I say some- 
thing so strong, and I confess, at first thought, so 
seemingly strange, as that I think that religion may 
well go and sit at the feet of science to learn lessons 
of true and real faith. 

Listen to Tennyson, the great poet of nature and 
science : 



RELIGIOUS LESSONS LEARNED FROM SCIENTISTS. 203 

" Oh ! yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill, 
To pangs of nature, sins of will, 
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood ; 

" That nothing walks with aimless feet ; 
That not one life shall be destroyed, 
Or cast as rubbish to the void, 
When God hath made the pile complete ; 

({ That not a worm is cloven in vain ; 
That not a moth, with vain desire, 
Is shriveled in a fruitless fire, 
Or but subserves another's gain. 

" Behold ! we know not anything ; 

I can bat trust that good shall fall, 
At last — far off — at last to all, 
And every winter change to spring." 

I ask, Have we not here as grand and real faith as 
can be found voiced in literature ? And did not the 
great Laureate drink it a great deal more from nature 
and science than from the popular theologies of the 
Christian world ? 

These then, friends, are a few of the lessons which, 
I think, as persons who care for real religion, we may 
learn, and ought to learn, from those, on the whole, 
truly noble men, whom God, in his all-comprehending 
providence, has raised up, to give to the world, from 
him, the priceless legacy of modern science. Other 
lessons still might be mentioned ; but these are, per- 
haps, as important as any. Do not understand me 
as for a moment desiring to teach that science is 
religion, or that science can ever take the place of 
religion. By no manner of means. The province 
of religion is one ; the province of science is quite 
another. The functions of religion are one; the 
functions of science quite another. But the Author 



204 ORTHODOXY AND KEVIVALISM. 

of these two is the same, and they are both friends. 
Rightly understood, religion and science can no more 
be enemies than my eyes and my ears can be ene- 
mies, or than my perception and my reason can be 
enemies. This, friends, let us believe and know. 
This let us rest in with great peace and hope. And 
if we really do believe this, I am sure I see not any- 
thing that will seem to us sadder than the sight of re- 
ligious people looking out upon science and the great 
leaders of science with hostility or suspicion or fear. 
As if there were danger that religion could not stand 
light! As if there were reason for apprehension 
lest the great spiritual verities upon which religion 
founds itself, and with which it has to do, may prove 
intangible and fade away under investigation ! Ah ! 
religion means more than that. Did you ever look 
upon a mountain at night ? Under the dim light of 
moon and stars its outline was more or less con- 
fused ; it was a vague and shadowy thing ; it seemed 
to you as if at any moment it might take wing and 
fly away. Surely under the light of the sun it would 
vanish into thin air and nothingness. But ere long 
the night passed away, and the light of moon and 
stars gave place to the light of the dreaded sun. Did 
the mountain disappear? Instead, its outlines grew 
sharper, every feature about it more distinct. Instead 
of fading away with the light of day, it grew a 
thousand times more real. So history teaches us it 
has ever been with religion, in all its experience in 
connection with science. Ever the mistaken friends 
of religion have clung to the moonlight and the star- 
light, and said, " Let not the sunlight come." And as 
they have seen the rays of a day of larger knowledge, 
whose sun is science, streaking the east, they have 
trembled. 



"RELIGIOUS LESSONS LEARNED FROM SCIENTISTS. 20.5 

But all without reason. For He who made the 
sun made the mountain also. And the brighter the 
light has shined the more plainly has it appeared 
that the mountain was not a phantom, but a real 
thing, with its outline ever clearing, and its founda- 
tions firm as the earth. 

Chicago, February, 1876. 



DARWINISM AND RELIGION. 



"I will trust, and not be afraid." — Isaiah xii. 2. 

There is an old story somewhere of a man's hang- 
ing on the edge of a precipice, through the dark 
hours of night, believing that if his grasp failed him 
he would be instantly dashed into a thousand frag- 
ments. At length his strength would hold out no 
longer, and he fell — only to discover that his feet had 
been all the while but two inches from the ground ! 
The precipice was the creation of his own imagina- 
tion, and his long agony had been thrown away. I 
think we have in this story an admirable illustration 
of the condition that the religious world is constantly 
finding itself in with regard to the progress of the 
age. Ever and anon the cry is raised that religion 
is in danger from the developments of science. Par- 
ticular facts are brought to light that do not harmo- 
nize with the preconceived notions of the Church ; or 
some scientific theory is announced which the theo- 
logians have not taught, and which was evidently 
not known to the writers of the Bible. A great com- 
motion is created. The champions of the theologies 
whet their swords. The cry is at once raised that 
Christianity is in danger, and all good men are sum- 
moned to the rescue. From the representations of 
the fiery opponents of the new heresy it would be 
scarcely extravagant to regard the cause of religion 



DARWINISM AND RELIGION. 207 

on the eartli as hanging on the edge of a precipice 
which unholy science had maliciously created, and 
about to fall and be utterly destroyed, unless her 
friends rallied vigorously to her aid. But somehow 
religion has always managed to live through these 
periodical scares. After more or less protracted 
times of darkness and agony the supposed precipices 
and perils have been found to be only figments of 
unbalanced imaginations, and really the falls that re- 
ligion has experienced, when it was unable to retain 
its grasp longer on the crumbling crags of its old 
superstitions, have only brought its feet upon firmer 
ground than they had ever occupied before. 

First came astronomy, and took the earth from its 
place in the center of the universe, with the sun and 
stars revolving round it, and only existing to be its 
great bonfire in the day and its candles in the night, 
and assigned it, instead, a subordinate place among 
the planets of one of the numberless systems that in- 
habit space. It was a terrible blow to the old ideas 
to have the earth, dignified by being the dwelling- 
place for thirty years of the incarnated Creator him- 
self, as it was held, suddenly shrink from being the 
grand center of all things to a mere speck on the 
outer rim of creation. Nevertheless religion stood. 

Then came geology, undermining the Mosaic cos- 
mogony as given in Genesis, and showing that the 
eartli was not six days, but millions of years in crea- 
tion, and that during those millions of years it passed 
through changes and transformations and processes 
of development which the account of Moses cannot 
be brought to harmonize with without such distortion 
as would turn the entire Bible into sibyl's leaves, 
and make all human language a chaos. The battle 
was long and severe. The friends of religion, so 



208 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

called, rallied against the infidel, and fought with a 
vigor and perseverance worthy of a better cause. 
Nevertheless, little by little they have had to yield. 
And at last we may say that the contest is virtually 
ended. Geology, in its great facts and general prin- 
ciples, is accepted. And still religion lives. 

These two great battles mentioned are only the 
most prominent among a large number of similar 
ones which the past has witnessed between theology 
and science. To-day, as you know, several distinct 
battles of the same kind are going on. One is on 
the ground of scientific criticism of the Bible. Such 
names as Baur and Straus and Eenan and Oolenso 
and Ewald, and our own Professors Norton and 
Noyes, are well-known names in connection with this 
contest. 

Another battle now waging is on the ground of 
comparative religion, as is testified by the works of 
Max Muller, Dr. J. Freeman Clarke's " Ten Great 
Religions," Samuel Johnson's recent work on " Ori- 
ental Religions," Professor W. D: Whiting's volume 
on the " Veda, Avesta, and Science of Language," 
and other works of the same character multiplying 
rapidly from the press. But, beyond question, the 
battle which has been raging for the past ten years 
more fiercely than any other is the battle against 
what is known as Darwinism. It is this battle that 
I wish to-day to approach, blow away a little of the 
smoke, if I can, and see, with you, what cause of ap- 
prehension there may be or may not be for the issue. 
I shall not attempt the championship of either side. 
I have no desire for any part in the contest what- 
ever. If any of you who hear me have made up 
your minds that Darwinism is true, or that it is not 
true, I have no controversy with you. The truth or 



DARWINISM AND RELIGION. 209 

falseness of it can be settled, not by tlie notions of 
the people about it, or their choices concerning it, or 
declamations in pulpits for or against it, but only by 
the slowly and carefully formed verdict of the scien- 
tific world. Moreover, it is a subject upon which 
those who have studied most thoroughly, and conse- 
quently are best qualified to judge, are as yet by no 
means of one mind, although it must be confessed 
that it is rapidly growing in favor. It becomes 
candid people, therefore, who have not time and 
scientific attainments to take part intelligently in 
the contest (as very few have), to wait patiently un- 
til the verdict is rendered, and then accept it cheer- 
fully and without apprehension; sure that truth, 
whether it coincides with our desires and pre-con- 
ceived notions or not, is always safe. 

First of all I shall inquire briefly, What is Dar- 
winism? Second, What does Darwinism involve 
with reference to orthodoxy ? Third, What does 
it involve with reference to religion ? 

First, then, what is Darwinism ? Of course most 
of us know ; and yet, for the sake of clearness and 
completeness, I will state its leading thought. Dar- 
winism is one branch or department of the great 
doctrine of evolution ; which doctrine of evolution is 
the doctrine that creation was not the work of a day 
or a week or an age ; or performed at or during any 
specific time, and then left off as completed; but 
that creation has been going on, by a gradual process, 
from a time indefinitely far back, and is going on 
still. In other words, the doctrine is that the world 
and the universe were not created at all in any such 
sense as we generally conceive. They were rather 
evolved according to Certain laws. A plant is not 
created or made, as we generally understand the 



210 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

words; but it grows, by a gradual process, and under 
the direction of certain well-defined laws, from a 
simple seed or bulb or germ. A crystal is not cre- 
ated, as we usually think of the word. It forms by 
slow deposition or aggregation obediently to the well- 
known laws of crystallization. So evolutionists hold 
that the universe has come to be what it is by an in- 
conceivably extended process of development, or un- 
folding, under definite law, from the homogeneous to 
the heterogeneous, from the simple to the ever more 
and more complex. First the universe existed as a 
vague, indefinitely extended fire-mist. This, set in 
motion, tends to aggregation and separation into 
parts. The particular part which comprehended 
what is now the solar system, revolving, condenses, 
and, in accordance with the law of universal gravity, 
forms Neptune, the outermost planet of the system, 
with its satellites; then Uranus, the next in order 
of remoteness, with its satellites ; then the next and 
the next, until at last, in the center of the system, 
the sun himself is formed. The earth, when coming 
into separate existence by this process of condensa- 
tion, is first a dense, fiery gas. By the attraction of 
gravity, tending to draw all parts to a common 
center, and by the cooling of the mass, it gradually 
shrinks and becomes a liquid, and at length a par- 
tially solid body, as now. Then, when the ocean has 
become of a temperature to admit of it, and land has 
appeared, forms of simple vegetable life begin to de- 
velop, and later, animal life. This development goes 
on slowly and 3^et steadily, until the earth becomes 
what it has become, and man at length appears 
upon the stage, the last, best, highest product of all 
that went before. This I say is, in brief, the doctrine 
of evolution. 



DARWINISM AND RELIGION. 211 

The name of Darwin has become associated espe- 
cially with a single section of this doctrine, viz., that 
which treats of the relation of species to each other ; 
asking the question, whether higher species of life, 
animal and vegetable, may be developed from lower ; 
and leading up, of course, to the final question of 
the origin of man ; taking the ground that man had 
his origin, not in a direct creation of Omnipotence, 
from the dust of the ground, but that he became man 
by a process of natural development, inconceivably 
slow and almost infinitely long, through successive 
forms of life. Not but that the general idea of man's 
origin through such development had been held and 
urged long before Mr. Darwin. But Mr. Darwin, for 
the first time, x)ointed out the laws and conditions 
of this development. Before him, it was a mere 
theory, having little basis but speculation. But Mr. 
Darwin came forward enunciating two great laws — 
the laws of natural and sexual selection, which, by 
an overwhelming array of facts, he proved to be real 
laws, and, as he contended, powerful and wide-reach- 
ing enough to account for all or nearly all the steps 
of progress from the brute to the human being. His 
books certainly form an era in the department of 
science in which they fall, whether it shall be finally 
decided that they adequately explain the origin of 
the human race or not. They are remarkably calm, 
clear, and candid, and they are crowded with facts 
that cannot be evaded. It would be hard to conceive 
of a doctrine as subjected to more silly ridicule and 
empty-headed abuse than this of Mr. Darwin has 
been. But those men who have studied it most 
carefully, in the writings of its author, are, as a rule, 
either converts, or at least respectful opponents. 
They recognize in Mr. Darwin a strong and earnest 



212 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

man of extraordinary scientific knowledge, and with 
a love of truth for the truth's sake that is as extra- 
ordinary as his breadth and thoroughness of infor- 
mation. He is no mere iconoclast or vandal or spe- 
culative adventurer; but a self-poised apostle of 
science, sincere and brave; withholding no blow 
that truth demands, and striking no blow that does 
not tell ; a worthy coadjutor of such men as Tyndall 
and Faraday and Huxley and Carpenter and Spencer. 
So much, then, for the answer of our first question — 
What is Darwinism ? 

Second. I proceed now to my next inquiry, What 
is involved in Darwinism, so far as orthodoxy is con- 
cerned ? To this I answer, there is a great deal in- 
volved in it, so far as orthodoxy is concerned, and 
that is the reason why orthodoxy has fought it so 
fiercely. Dr. Tayler Lewis, one of the most learned 
scholars and able champions of orthodoxy in this 
country, in a letter to The 'New York Tribune on the 
subject of Darwinism, only a few weeks ago, said : 
" The creation of the first man by the direct fiat of 
the Almighty, without any intervening causes, is the 
fundamental doctrine of Christianity, on whose truth 
the whole Christian system rests, and by which it 
must stand or fall. If that is not true, Christianity 
is not true." Of course the learned writer meant by 
Christianity orthodoxy ; and substituting, therefore, 
the word orthodoxy for the word Christianity, what 
he said is undoubtedly true. " The creation of the 
first man by the direct fiat of the Almighty, without 
any intervening causes, is the fundamental doctrine 
of orthodoxy, on whose truth the whole orthodox 
system rests, and by which it must stand or fall. If 
that is not true, orthodoxy is not true." This being so 
unmistakably the condition of things, is it any wonder 



DARWINISM AND RELIGION. 213 

that the orthodox fleet, from the first appearance of 
Mr. Darwin on the scene, should have cleared decks 
for action, never letting the boom of their guns cease 
until the present moment ? If man, instead of hav- 
ing been created by the direct fiat of the Almighty, 
as Genesis has it, has developed from low T er forms of 
life, then, of course, there could have been no Adam, 
no Eden, no fall of the race in Adam ; and, as a con- 
sequence, any system of theology built upon the 
theory of the fall, as the present orthodox system is, 
must be built upon a myth and not upon a reality. 
If it was u in Adam's fall that we sinned all," and if 
the guilt and condemnation of the race and need of 
a Saviour and Eedemption come from that fall, as our 
orthodox and evangelical friends say, how immense- 
ly important it becomes that they should hold fast to 
Adam, and not let him nor his fall slip out of their 
hands! And when a scientific theory comes along 
proposing very coolly to take away the fall, Adam 
and all, as Darwinism does, w r hat can they do but 
fight it ? Either this, or else give up, let their theol- 
ogy go overboard, and turn heretics with us liberals. 
This is precisely the strait that adherents of the or- 
thodox theology find themselves in to-day, with ref- 
erence to Darwinism. 

Of course I do not mean to be understood as say- 
ing that if Darwinism comes to be generally accept- 
ed, orthodoxy will not find some way of explaining 
things, some process of so-called reconciliation, be- 
tween itself and the new scientific doctrine, which 
will enable it to continue on with some outward show 
of plausibility, claiming for itself a place still in 
men's belief. There is nothing more curious in his- 
tory than the facility which orthodoxy has always 
shown of reconciling itself with whatever, after a hard 



214 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

battle, it lias found itself unable to overthrow. And 
in this case, as in so many before, we shall, in a little 
while, doubtless, see it offering to lie down by the 
side of Darwinism, as meekly as if the two had 
always been twin lambs. However, the thinness of 
this kind of thing begins to appear after a while ; 
indeed, it has begun very plainly to appear already. 
These reconciliations are fast becoming the laughing- 
stock of the scientific world, and, indeed, of the 
world of intelligence generally, outside of the theo- 
logical circles. Surely they can't be tolerated much 
longer by anybody who reads and thinks. It can be 
only a matter of time when a theology which deals 
in them as a staple article with it must go to the 
wall, and when another, which is reasonable and 
friendly to science and all new truth, shall take its 
place as the theology of the better part at least 
of the Christian world. And, friends, when the old 
dogmatic system does fall, believe me, it will certain- 
ly be found that Darwinism gave it one of the most 
severe blows it ever received. Thus much as to the 
relation of Darwinism to orthodoxy. 

Third. We come now to our third question, What 
does Darwinism involve in relation to religion ? 
Earnest and well-meaning people, whose knowledge 
of Darwinism comes principally from its enemies, are 
constantly heard asking in all seriousness such ques- 
tions as these : Does it not involve the giving up of 
the Bible ? Does it not degrade man to the level of 
the brute ? Does it not deny the existence of the 
soul ? Does it not annihilate all prospects of a life 
beyond the grave ? Does it not virtually dethrone 
God and enthrone law in his place ? Does it not in- 
volve the overthrow of religion, and evert virtue? I 
say, good men and women all about us are actually 



DARWINISM AND RELIGION. 215 

asking, in all seriousness, every one of these ques- 
tions, with reference to this theory of Mr. Darwin. 
And that it does do all these things, if admitted to 
be true, is charged by its opponents in the religious 
Avorld. Let us look at the more important of these 
questions, one by one. 

1. Does not Darwinism involve the dethroning of 
God, and the setting up of dead law in his stead ? 
I reply, a man might, doubtless, be a Darwinian and 
an atheist, as he might be an anti-Darwinian and an 
atheist. But, for one, I see no shadow of a reason 
why a man may not with perfect consistency be a 
Darwinian and a devout believer in the Infinite First 
Cause and Father. Mr. Darwin holds that men have 
become w T hat they are by a process of development; 
but he does not seek to remove God from that de- 
velopment. Does it any less require a God to make 
a tree to become a tree by a gradual growth of fifty 
years than it would to create the tree at once full 
size? Is it necessary for me to deny that I have a 
creator, because I believe that I developed to my 
present size and strength from a small and helpless 
infancy? So, is it necessary to deny the existence 
of God, or that God is the Creator of all things, 
because we believe that all things have come to 
their present condition through a marvelous process 
of evolution ? Indeed, is not the very idea of God 
which makes him a God of law, a God of order, a 
God of magnificent, never-resting, all-comprehend- 
ing progress and on-moving of all creation toward 
some higher, and, as yet, uncomprehended destiny, 
a nobler and more honorable conception of him than 
any to which the world has hitherto attained ? 
Surely that is a singular intellectual condition w r hich 
sees, in the pushing back of the history of the earth 



216 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

from six thousand years to millions, or in the enlarg- 
ing of the bounds of the universe from our own little 
planet to the limitless realms revealed by modern 
astronomy, or in the changing of creation from an 
arbitrary act accomplished in six days to a wonderful 
process comprehending all space and all time, and 
all things — man among the rest. I say, it is a singular 
intellectual condition that can by any possibility see 
in this a denial of the existence or creatorship of God. 
2. Granting, then, that Darwinism does not neces- 
sarily involve a denial of God or of his potency in 
creation, does it not involve a denial of the existence 
of the soul, and, consequently, does it not turn into an 
impossibility the life beyond this world, and make 
this present state the all of existence to man ? I 
answer, I do not see that it involves anything of this 
kind ; for it does not attempt to investigate man's 
nature at all, whether he is this or that, or whether 
his destiny be this or that. The ground that it pro- 
poses to investigate is not metaphysical or theological 
or inclusive of the spirit world. Rather, taking man 
as he is, as we all see him and know him, it asks the 
simple questions, How did he come to be what he is ? 
Was it by a single, sudden act of creation, or by a 
process of gradual development ? Nothing less nor 
more than that. And may not man be an immortal 
spirit just as well if he came to his present condition 
by one road as by another ? Is there any particular 
virtue in the dust of the ground, so that he should be 
more likely to be immortal if made out of that than 
if he developed from the most intelligent of the brute 
creation ? Why may we not argue just the other 
way, and say, the higher the origin from whence he 
sprang the higher nature and destiny we have a right 
to claim for him ? And surely an origin from other 



DARWINISM AND RELIGION. 217 

forms of animal life is higher than an origin from 
"red earth," for the word "Adam" means "red 
earth." No 5 if coming to be what we are as a race, 
through development, prevents our having souls, and 
destroys our immortality, then it must be that com- 
ing to what we are individually, you and I, by de- 
velopment, prevents our — your, and my immortality, 
and possession of souls. For, whatever may be 
said of the race, you and I did come to be what we 
are by development; this nobody can deny. And 
we have developed into men and women from forms 
of life vastly lower, too, in intelligence, than apes 
and monkeys and gorillas. Indeed, we can scarcely 
conceive of a living thing w r ith less intelligence than 
a new-born babe. And if from an infant that liter- 
ally does not know anything — not black from white, 
not an object a mile away from an object within arm's 
reach, not a living person from a dead thing — splen- 
did intellects and immortal souls may develop, who 
shall say that the development of the race as a race 
from animals w T ell-nigh as intelligent now as some 
men, and a thousand times more intelligent than 
infants, involves a loss of man's immortality, and the 
impossibility of his having a soul distinct from his 
body ? Nay, more than that ; if, in order to be pos- 
sessed of a living soul and an essential immortality, 
there must be sudden creation, then the only immor- 
tal persons and the only persons with souls that 
have ever lived on the earth were Adam and Eve. 
For they were the only man and woman created, ac- 
cording to the old idea of creation. All the rest came 
to manhood and womanhood by a development far 
greater, in the increase of mental, spiritual, and even 
bodily powers it involves, than Darwinism claims for 
the race as a race. 
10 



218 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

No ! I conceive that the theory of Mr. Darwin does 
not touch the question of man's spiritual nature or 
immortality at all. Or, if it does, I do not see but it 
is to be regarded as quite as much in favor as against. 
The truth is, man is what he is, no matter through 
what channel God saw fit to give the race its begin- 
ning. It does not in the least, in any true theory of 
judging, change your or my individual character or 
ability or worth or standing in society, whether our 
ancestors, five centuries ago, were cobblers or kings. 
No more does it affect the standing or worth of the 
race before God, or in any way change their charac- 
ter or nature or spiritual possibilities, whether they 
sprang, five hundred or five thousand generations ago, 
from monkeys or oysters, or, what is really the lowest 
and most humiliating origin of all, the dirt of the 
ground in Eden, as claimed by Genesis and the the- 
ologies. 

3. But does not Darwinism involve at least giving 
up the Bible ? I reply, That depends upon what you 
mean by giving up the Bible. If you call the ceasing 
to ascribe a miraculous infallibility to it, giving it up, 
then Darwinism evidently does involve giving up 
the Bible; for, as I have said, its fundamental idea is 
that man came into existence, not by a single and 
sudden act of creation out of the dust of the earth, 
as the Jews supposed, but by a wondrous process of 
development, extending back through unnumbered 
ages ; and that ever since he became man he has, by 
the great law of the " survival of the fittest," been 
slowly and painfully, but, on the whole, steadily, 
rising and improving ; instead of having been, as the 
author of Genesis thought, created perfect, and 
lapsed subsequently into imperfection and degrada- 
tion. It is evident that the conception which Darwin 



DARWINISM AND RELIGION. 219 

has of man's creation, history on the earth, and na- 
ture, is radically different from that taught by many 
of the writers of the Bible, especially of the Old 
Testament. So that, I say, if you call the admission 
that there are scientific errors in the Bible giving it 
up, then Darwinism does involve the giving up of 
the Bible. 

But if you hold, with many of the wisest and best 
and most deeply religious men of our time, that the 
Bible neither justifies nor claims any such theory of 
infallibility concerning it, and that its worth and 
authority are entirely independent of any such 
theory, then Darwinism does not involve the giving 
up of the Bible at all. Darwinism refuses to take 
the Bible as in any sense a text-book in science ; but 
there is nothing about it that would in the least 
degree encourage a disparagement of the dignity 
and power and worth of the Bible, or that would at 
all tend to diminish true reverence for it as the great, 
unequaled, or, if you please, unapproached religious 
book of the world. The prophets of the Old Testa- 
ment still remain the sublimest moral characters of 
ancient times. David's psalms still continue the 
finest outpourings of a devout soul that come down 
to us from the early world. John is as sweet and 
loving and love-inspiring as ever. Paul stirs and 
energizes the consciences of his readers as much as 
ever he did. And above all Jesus remains the same 
incomparable teacher and the same inspiring person- 
ality that he has been found from the beginning to 
be, whether Darwinism triumphs or fails. In short, I 
do not conceive that Darwinism involves the denial 
or giving up of any single thing essential to religion. 
It does not take away God, nor any of his attributes 
—his power, his wisdom, his eternity, his goodness, 



220 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

his love, his personality, his providence, his creator- 
ship, his paternity. All these remain untouched and 
complete. 

Nor does it affect human nature. We are what we 
are, and nothing else, whether we came from oysters 
or angels. It does not affect our duty or destiny. 
The obligations that lie upon us all, human ward, are 
just the same. The obligations that lie upon us God- 
ward are not changed. Our outlooks and possibili- 
ties and inheritances for the world to come are un- 
affected. I do not conceive that it disturbs any 
spiritual thing. Indeed, why should we expect or 
even in the slightest degree fear it would ? Do we 
not believe that the world of spiritual things rests 
on a basis of truth ? And do we have any appre- 
hension that truth is in any danger of overthrow ? 
Darwinism will not stand unless it is proved true. 
And if it is proved true, need we fear that one true 
thing will prove dangerous to another true thing? 
Have we not yet attained to the height where we 
can believe that God is the God of all truth ? — hold- 
ing each separate truth in his hand securely as he 
holds the separate stars in his hand securely ? 

It is saddening, and humiliating too, to think 
that the religious world has not yet, in the latter half 
of the nineteenth century, got beyond the necessity 
of having a panic over every new development of 
science which seems to oppose the necessarily crude 
scientific ideas of the early Jews. We are told, in 
the book of Samuel, of a man who, fearing lest the 
ark of God should be overturned, when it was being 
moved on a cart over a rough road, put up his hand 
to steady it, and was for his impious fear struck dead. 
I apprehend that if all those who, in these times, 
fearing the u assaults," as they are called, of science, 



DARWINISM AND RELIGION. 221 

put up their hands to steady the throne of God, 
should be struck dead, there would be such weeping 
and mourning in the religious world as was never 
seen. 

If there is anything that we are not to be afraid of 
it is the truth. And if there are any sincere and 
careful and sure-footed seekers for the truth now 
living; nay, if the ages thus far have ever produced 
such seekers for the truth, they are the scientists 
of the present day. What interest have these sci- 
entists in Darwinism, only so far as it is proved to 
be true ; or, for that matter, any particular scientific 
theory ? If anything on earth has to run a gauntlet 
of drawn swords, and pass through an ordeal of fire, 
it is a new scientific doctrine. A thousand Argus 
eyes are watching. A lamb pounced upon by a 
hundred eagles would scarcely fare worse than a 
scientific man fares who advances a theory that the 
facts do not sustain. When Darwin came forth in 
the scientific arena with his new doctrine, it was as a 
solitary swordsman to be rushed upon by an army, 
every man of whom would do his best to hew him to 
pieces. If he shall not be hewn to pieces, it will be 
because his armor of self-defense and his sword of of- 
fense are truth. Nothing else can save him. 

This battle, as every similar battle of the past, 
must go on on the basis of science. And while it is 
going on, it is as foolish for religious people to get 
frightened and rush in with their exhortations and 
denunciations and texts of Scripture, as it would 
have been for the women of Pennsylvania, alarmed 
for the safety of their State, to have rushed into the 
conflict of Gettysburg with their brooms. Not but 
that religious people have as much right, in this or 
any other contest where truth is involved, as unre- 



222 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

ligious people. They have as much right. Only, if 
they come in, they must come in with the weapons of 
facts and proofs, and not with the broomsticks of 
their old prejudices, or want-it-to-be-sos, or mere be- 
liefs, or references to Jewish notions of three thou- 
sand years. And, fought out on the basis of facts, 
verities, conscientious investigations of all things, we 
need have no fear. 

Eabbi Gamaliel uttered a sentiment more than 
eighteen hundred years ago which only a small 
part of the Christian world are up to to-day. " Let 
alone," he said, "for if this thing be of men it will 
come to naught; but if it be of God, ye cannot 
overthrow it ; lest haply ye be found fighting against 
God." Let this be our assurance, amid all the heav- 
ings and tossings of the scientific, speculative, theo- 
logical thought of the times. That which is of men 
only will assuredly come to naught ; that which is 
of God will assuredly stand. 

I have read that in the waters of the West Indies, 
" on a dark night, in a time of strife, an English ship 
of war once drew near what seemed a hostile vessel 
under full sail. She hailed the stranger, who an- 
swered not; then hailed again; no answer. Then 
fired a shot across her bows, but still no reply ; next 
fired at her amidships, but got no word in return. 
Finally, the man-of-war cleared for action, began 
battle in earnest, serving her guns with true British 
vigor ; but found no response save the rattle of shot 
rebounding and falling back into a heedless sea. Day- 
light came, and the captain found he had spent his 
powder battering a great rock in the ocean." 

Friends, how often has it been the case in the 
world that good men and the Church of Christ have 
been found firing their heaviest broadsides at some 



DARWINISM AND EELIGION. 223 

supposed form of hostile error ; and lo ! afterward, 
when the night of vagueness had gone, and the morn- 
ing of a better intelligence had come, it was found 
that the supposed enemy was not an enemy at all, 
but a great God-planted rock of impregnable truth ! 
It may prove so with Darwinism ; or, for aught we 
know, it may not. But this we know, that neither 
thunder of hostile battle shot nor dash of devour- 
ing wave can disturb the real rock of God's truth, 
wherever that be. The false will fall ; the true will 
stand. Therefore in this controversy, as in all others, 
where much that is holy and dear to us all seems to 
be at stake, let us put our hand in the hand of God 
and be calm and confident. 

Chicago, March, 1876. 



SOME BOOKS AND AUTHORS THAT HELPED ME 
FROM BONDAGE TO FREEDOM: 

A CHAPTER OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 



[From the Unitarian JZeview.'] 

"The Life and Letters of F. W. Robertson" fell 
into my hands immediately after the publication of 
the work. It was at the close of a vacation, the 
whole of which I had spent wrestling with doubts 
and questionings over things which I had been 
taught to believe were the very fundamentals of re- 
ligion. I had read half a dozen volumes on the evi- 
dences of Christianity, and all the other books I 
could find that held out any hope of being able to 
give me light or rest ; but all to little purpose. At- 
tempts to get help from conversations with friends 
had failed, and worse than failed. I went back to 
college. One more year of study remained before I 
should be ready to enter upon my divinity course. 
The anxiety with which I looked forward to that 
year, it may well be conceived, was intense ; for I 
felt that, unless light came to me before its close, 1 
could not conscientiously enroll myself in a theologi- 
cal seminary as a student for the ministry. True, I 
was known already as preparing for that work. In- 
deed, the church of which I was a member had seen 
fit to license me to preach, and I myself had gone so 
far as several times to occupy pulpits. All this, of 
course, greatly increased the pressure that was upon 



A CHAPTER OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 225 

me. Somewhat before this time my attention had 
been called to Mr. Bobertson, and I had been greatly 
fascinated by his character and such of his writings as 
I had seen. But, on my return to my studies, the 
newly-published "Life and Letters" fell almost at 
once into my hands. Truly they were a godsend. I 
think I never read any book with such eagerness 
and delight. They were food and drink to me for 
weeks, nay, for the whole year. When the next sum- 
mer came, thanks to these volumes more than to any 
other one agency, I was no longer in doubt as to 
whether I could conscientiously enter the theological 
school. Not that my doubts were gone. Not that 
he had brought to me a solution of all the problems 
that troubled me. Not that he had discovered to 
me a system of theology that by any means fully met 
my wants. But he had done much for me. 

First, he had taught me not to let my doubts con- 
cerning some things cause me to let go all. I must 
discriminate ; I must set stakes ; I must u strengthen 
the things which remain, that are ready to die." 
Naturally, doubt is contagious. Tolerated with ref- 
erence to one thing, it tends to communicate itself to 
others. This is unquestionably the dangerous thing 
about doubting, that it is liable to degenerate into 
general skepticism. But Mr. Bobertson was a great 
believer. He doubted widely and profoundly, but 
not half so profoundly or widely as he believed. He 
drew the lines carefully but firmly round about those 
things which were fixed and beyond doubt, and set 
his feet upon these as upon an eternal rock. There 
was no negative, indifferent, or essentially skeptical 
condition of mind ever to be found in him. He only 
doubted because he must, and so much as he must, 
and so long as he must. He doubted, that he plight 
10* 



226 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

believe more intelligently, more really. The fact that 
he found himself compelled to doubt concerning 
some things, only made him hold the more firmly to 
all things concerning which he was not compelled to 
doubt. The lesson he taught me in respect to this 
w r as invaluable. I shall never forget the impression 
made upon me, the first time I read it, of this power- 
ful passage from an address delivered by him before 
the Workingman's Institute of Brighton : " It is an 
awful moment when the soul begins to find that the 
props upon which it has blindly rested so long are, 
many of them, rotten, and begins to suspect them 
all ; when it begins to feel the nothingness of many 
of the traditionary opinions which have been received 
with implicit confidence, and in that horrible inse- 
curity begins also to doubt whether there be anything 
to believe at all. It is an awful hour ; let him who 
has passed through it say how awful. * * * In that 
fearful loneliness of spirit, when those who should 
have been his friends and counsellors only frown upon 
his misgivings, and profanely bid him stifle doubts 
which, for aught he knows, may arise from the foun- 
tain of truth itself ; to extinguish, as a glare from hell, 
that which, for aught he knows, may be light from 
heaven ; and everything seems wrapped in hideous 
uncertainty, I know of but one way in w T hich a man 
may come forth from his agony scatheless : it is by 
holding fast to those things which are certain still, 
the grand, simple, landmarks of morality. In the 
darkest hour through which a human soul can pass, 
whatever else is doubtful, these at least are certain. 
If there be no God and no future state, yet, even then, 
it is better to be generous than selfish, better to be 
chaste than licentious, better to be true than false, 
better to be brave than to be a coward. Blessed be- 



A CHAPTER OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 1227 

yond all earthly blessedness is the man who, in the 
tempestuous darkness of the soul, has dared to hold 
fast to these venerable landmarks. Thrice blessed 
is he, who, when all else is drear and cheerless 
within and without, when his teachers terrify him and 
his friends shrink from him, has obstinately clung to 
moral good. Thrice blessed, because his night shall 
pass into clear, cloudless day." That passage rang 
like a bell in my soul from the moment I read it. It 
was a voice of God. I am not aware that any other 
passage, from lip or pen of human being, ever did so 
much, in times of my deepest need, to hold me in 
moral and spiritual poise, to keep me from any tend- 
ency to drift into indifference, recklessness, epicure- 
anism, the deadly " habit of doubt,' 7 as this. 

Secondly, Mr. Eobertson taught me that the most 
fearless searching for truth, and the stoutest doubt- 
ing, may consist with the purest character, the 
noblest life, and, what is more, the profoundest 
piety. Up to this time I had never been able to 
break away from the dominance of that idea, which 
is the strongest bulwark of orthodoxy, that to doubt 
is sin. In all the teaching I had ever received, from 
Sunday school and pulpit and religious literature, 
no idea had been more steadily and uniformly insisted 
upon than this. This dogma, therefore, had long 
been my most galling chain. For, the stern, inevi- 
table fact was, I did doubt. Many of the teachings 
of orthodoxy were such that, as the years went on, 
and I came to look into them more carefully, I sim- 
ply could not, by any effort, believe them. I was ab- 
solutely compelled to doubt concerning them, or else 
stop thinking. What a relief, therefore, came to me 
in reading the life of one who had found himself 
driven into doubts almost identical with my own, 



228 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

and yet who had struggled through them all to finr 
faith, with his conscientiousness, his devotion to 
duty, his adherence to truth, his love, his reverence, 
Ids piety, only purified and strengthened by the 
struggle ! When T closed these precious volumes, I 
breathed free as I had never done before. A weight, 
heavier and more crushing than I can tell, had gone 
from my soul. I no longer believed that honest, 
earnest doubt or questioning was sin. I could not, 
with the life of F. W. Eobertson before me. From 
that time I saw that the noblest heroism may be the 
heroism of doubt; and that the truest following of 
him, who proclaimed himself " the Way, the Truth, 
and the Life," may, and often must, lead through 
what to the superficial on-looker seems fearful skep- 
ticism. The name of " rationalist " became no longer 
the hideous thing it had been before. The word 
" infidel " lost much of its terror. " Skeptic " and 
"heretic" came to have entirely different significa- 
tions from what they had formerly had. And how 
could it be otherwise, when I saw on every hand, 
throughout the whole English-speaking orthodox 
world, the epithets " heretic" and u skeptic" and 
"rationalist" and even "infidel" heaped in moun- 
tains upon one whom I found myself compelled to 
pronounce loyal to Christ, and all that Christ and 
Christianity stand for, as few men have ever been 
loyal % From that time forward to the present day, 
more and more I have habituated myself to ask con- 
cerning any charge of infidelity or rationalism or 
atheism, or anything of the kind, made against any 
man, " From what source does it come ? " before dar- 
ing to allow it to have even the weight of a hair 
against him. 
For much else am I indebted to Mr. Eobertson ; 



A CHAPTER OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 229 

but I have said enough, for my present purpose. 
Doubtless my judgment is somewhat biased by the 
great service he has done me, but I cannot regard 
him as other than one of the very greatest and most 
truly inspired of religious teachers. If any man in 
our times has looked into the deep things of God, if 
to any has been vouchsafed the "Vision of God," if 
any has found the Holy Grail, it seems to me it is he. 

* ' This earth, he walks on seems not earth, 
This light that strikes his eyeball is not light, 
This air that smites his forehead is not air, 
But vision." 

Strange as it may seem, I have to name, as next 
after Eobertson, in value of service rendered me in 
helping me from darkness to light, Mr. Buskin. I 
became a reader and admirer of Buskin's works 
about the time I first made acquaintance with Bobert- 
son. From that time for five years there was no 
author I read more. I can describe only very inade- 
quately how he helped me. Indeed, for a long time 
I was scarcely aware that he was helping me. But 
now, as I look back over the road I traveled, and 
analyze carefully the influences that wrought, openly 
or secretly, to bring me to the position which I at 
last reached — from the old bondage to the final 
freedom, from the night to the morning — I can 
clearly see that the writings of the great u Prophet 
of Art," and of more than art, must have a lead- 
ing place. I think his influence upon me was much 
the same as Carlyle's, only more tonic. Carlyle 
always thrilled and stirred me wondrously ; but, so 
far as distinctively Christian principles are concerned, 
he always left my feet standing on thin air. Not so 
with Buskin. His teaching has ever seemed to me 
exactly Christian ; and yet, particularly in his later 



230 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

works, it is Christian in a sense far more harmful to 
so-called u orthodoxy v than open anti-Christianity 
would be. It is true, Euskin made his fame as a 
writer on art, and most of his works have been on 
art, or, latterly, on political economy. Only one of all 
his books, and that a very small and in every way in- 
ferior one, has a religious subject. Yet, after all, no 
writer of our times is more essentially religious. He 
carries the religious spirit into art and political econ- 
omy and everything else he touches. He is a born 
prophet. He is the Hebrew Elijah transplanted into 
the midst of the finest culture of this nineteenth cen- 
tury, and set to the business of art-criticism, plus the 
(in his eyes) still more important business of righting 
the evils generally of modern society. Granted that he 
is impulsive, inconsistent, passionate, in many things 
impracticable, and a very Don Quixote ; still it re- 
mains none the less true that he is one of the most 
finely cultured, original, penetrating, brave, sympa- 
thetic, sternly honest, reverent, and in every way 
powerful of writers. He is a terrible iconoclast, 
wielding a perfect Thor hammer against the conven- 
tionalities and popular idols of the day. Yet, after 
all, he is as full of the spirit of admiration as of the 
spirit of destruction ; as appreciative and worshipful 
of everything that seems to him excellent, as he is 
savage against everything which seems to him false 
and unworthy. 

Whatever his influence morally and religiously 
has been npon the age (and for one I cannot believe 
it has been small), at least upon me I am sensible 
it was important. I think no writer ever revealed 
to me with such power the strange folly and sin of 
all that range of things found in the churches, which 
may be characterized as " tithings of mint, anise, 



A CHAPTER OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 231 

and cumin/ 7 to the neglect of u the weightier mat- 
ters of the law, the judgment, the mercy, and the 
faith." Many and many a thing in connection with 
religion, which I had previously held to with the ut- 
most tenacity, as something vital, I found myself, 
after reading him, little by little letting go of, and 
first becoming surprised and then ashamed that I 
had ever held to it, seeing so plainly as I did now, 
under his tuition, how evidently it was only a bit of 
" mint " or u anise," of ceremonial or symbol or creed, 
and not at all an essential thing in Christianity. 
This I am sure is one of the ways in which Bus- 
kin helped me from bondage toward freedom. No 
other author ever made me feel as he did the in- 
finite meanness of theological squabbles, sectarian 
shibboleths, church flummeries, and all those things 
which lie on the surface of religion, but touch not its 
divine heart of love and worship. Finally, I think 
he did more than any other writer to impress me 
with the fact of the almost necessary poisonousness 
of all established " orthodoxy." I mean, with the 
fact that, just so soon as any system of truth has 
got itself thoroughly formulated, and has battled its 
way, through one means or another, to general ac- 
ceptance, and so has reached the position where it 
labels itself as " orthodox," and, assuming the pur- 
ple robe and scepter of authority, sits down for the 
receiving of unchallenged homage, it has got to the 
point when, whatever it may be theoretically, prac- 
tically it is false and not true, slavery and not free- 
dom, death and not life; and this all the same 
whether it be a system of art or philosophy or ethics 
or religion* 

The writer who was next most helpful to me, after 
Robertson and Buskin, was George Macdonald. His 



232 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

little work on the " Miracles of Our Lord" gave me 
some light. His charming little volume of "Un- 
spoken Sermons " I read with sensible profit, espe- 
cially the sermon about " The Consuming Fire." But 
it was his novels that did most. These, as they fell 
upon my path, seven or eight of them in succession, 
during the three years of my theological study, and 
the year following, were oil upon troubled waters, or 
rather a very divine hand, which, just because it con- 
ducted me in peaceful, quiet ways, where scarcely 
more than the faintest echoes of polemical fifes and 
drums were heard, was able to do not a little, as I 
can see now, to lead me forward to accept and rest 
in the liberal faith of which Mr. Macdonald, in all 
his published books, is so effective a preacher. 

I think he was helpful largely, perhaps mainly, as 
painting for me in clear outline, at the time when I 
had become thoroughly dissatisfied with the old, and 
yet had not attained to a distinct view of a better 
new, the kind of religion that I had long in darkness 
been groping after. As I read his pictures of a 
Christian minister's work, in the " Annals of a Quiet 
Neighborhood," and of Christian home life, in " The 
Seaboard Parish," and his portrayal of such Chris- 
tian characters as David Elginbrod and Robert Fal- 
coner, I found myself constantly saying to myself 
with delight, " At last I have found one who has rep- 
resented almost exactly my ideal of true Christian- 
ity; one who has written out for me, in orderly 
form, my confused dream of years." In this respect 
his influence with me was much the same as Rob- 
ertson's. 

I confess it seems a little strange to me that the 
three writers whom I find myself compelled to men- 
tion first in this paper, as being most helpful to me 



A CHAPTER OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 233 

in finding my way from " orthodoxy " to "liberal 
Christianity," should be men none of them contro- 
versial or distinctively theological writers, and, at 
least, two of them ministers in so-called " orthodox " 
churches. I think the natural supposition would be, 
that, of course, it would be some of the well-known 
champions of the faith into which I have come that 
would influence and assist me most. And yet, when 
we come to look carefully, I think we may discern 
two or three reasons why it should have been as it 
was. 

In the first place, truth is deeper and broader and 
more subtle than any logic can ever be. And espe- 
cially is this the case with religious truth. I think 
that most men of deep religious nature, or keen re- 
ligious intuitions, have always a sort of instinctive 
feeling, even when they have built the strongest pos- 
sible wall about any system of religious truth, that 
after all, somehow, something more is needed ; the 
wall they have built is only an inadequate reliance, 
a thing that, though it now looks firm and strong, 
may yet, ere they know, melt away into thin air. 
Who that has thought and felt at all profoundly, Las 
not found that attempts to pack away any best re- 
ligious truth in formulas and dogmas and systems, 
though the attempts may accomplish something, and 
doubtless something useful sometimes, yet, after all, 
are but too likely to prove, in the main, mere futile 
efforts to lock up sunshine in oak chests ? The mo- 
ment it is locked up, it is no longer sunshine. 

I think it was a slight tinge of this distrust of ar- 
gumentation, and the logical method of getting at 
truth, that operated, in part, to keep me from re- 
ceiving that aid from the polemics of the faith to- 
ward which I was advancing, which it might have 



234 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

been expected I would have received from them ; 
and that opened my mind and heart to receive the 
same truth from prophets and seers like Robertson 
and Euskin and Macdonald, who did not so much 
argue as announce. 

But there was another reason, more important 
still, why such men as these last named were able to 
help me more than perhaps any of the out-and-out 
liberal writers. 

I suppose it is natural for the human mind to put 
itself in an attitude of defense whenever it comes 
into the presence of a known enemy. Certainly, I 
always found myself putting myself more or less dis- 
tinctly on the defensive whenever I came into con- 
tact with a theologian of known liberal views. The 
reason for it is plain. 

My earnest desire was to remain in the church and 
the faith in which I had been reared. My friends 
were there, my associations were there, my hopes 
were there. I only began to doubt concerning that 
faith by degrees, and as I was driven to it by my 
own mental necessities. Naturally, my reading and 
thinking would, for a long time at least, have for 
their leading object the banishing of these doubts, 
and the strengthening of the old foundations. For 
years I read almost exclusively orthodox writers, 
with the hope and expectation that I should be able 
to dissolve my doubts, and find peace and rest in the 
old theology. It was only natural, therefore, that 
when I took up a book in theology of a liberal charac- 
ter, my mind should assume a hostile attitude, and so 
place me in the most unfavorable possible condition 
to be affected by it. To be sure, as I came to be 
aware of this fact, I tried hard to guard against it, 
and I am sure to a measurable extent succeeded. 



A CHAPTER OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 235 

But yet human nature is human nature. I do not 
conceive it to be within the bounds of possibility for 
the human mind to be quite as clear- vision ed to see 
what it wishes not to see as what it wishes to see. 
Forever the desire influences the judgment, guard 
we against it never so strongly. 

This, then, was probably the leading reason why 
openly liberal writers, such as Unitarians, Universal- 
ists, and Free-thinkers, did not assist me more, es- 
pecially in the early part of my struggle. I met 
them in arms. But when I came to men who wore 
the name u Orthodox/ 7 and were connected with or- 
thodox denominations, it was very different. Then 
my mind instinctively in large measure laid aside its 
antagonism. They were not so far in advance of me 
but that I could reach their hands. And eagerly I 
stretched forth my hand and took theirs, fondly hop- 
ing that they would be able to conduct me to ground 
within the enclosure of the beloved old faith, where 
I could find rest. It is what writers have in com- 
mon with us that gives them their hold upon us. So 
it was what these men had in common with me that 
gave them their hold upon me. If they had been 
further advanced, they would have been able to 
help me less. They started me toward liberty, they 
unchained my feet, they taught me that I might 
think. But this done, and done thoroughly, the rest 
would almost certainly follow in due time. 

My little child, as is natural, is afraid of a stranger 
or a strange animal. But I find that having been in 
my arms a while in the presence of the stranger, or 
having played about for a time, under a nurse's care, 
in sight of the strange creature, she loses her fear, 
and will approach one or the other with perfect calm- 
ness. So men who stand within the pale of ortho- 



236 ORTHODOXY AND REVIVALISM. 

doxy, and yet are so heretically liberal as many are 
to-day, know not bow many infant u rationalists " 
tbey are playing tbe nurse to. Certainly, it was 
some of tbis class of men wbo carried me in tbeir 
arms, and beld me by tbe band, until I bad grown 
so familiar witb tbe sigbt of freedom and sincerity 
in tbougbt and inquiry tbat it was impossible for me 
ever to be afraid again. 

So mucb, tben, for tbe three writers tbat, as I 
think, did most for me in my years of mental strug- 
gle. I would not, however, have it understood that 
others, and many others, were not of very great ser- 
vice to me. Going back to the very earliest, I am 
not at all sure but tbat Combe's, in its time and way 
remarkable and masterly little work, on the " Con- 
stitution of Man," read and reread by me with pro- 
found interest when a mere boy, was the original egg 
from which the " viper" of my subsequent " ration- 
alizing" was batched. Coming down to time later, 
u Ecce Homo " was a book that took hold of my mind 
with great power. I read it and studied it, and made 
a careful and extended abstract of it. I think it was 
the picture tbat work gave me of Jesus that, more 
than anything else, first started me in the direction 
of distinctive Unitarianism. 

Dean Stanley was of great assistance to me ; so were 
Maurice and Jowett and others of the English Broad 
Churchmen. The life and writings of Dr. Arnold, of 
Rugby, did me especial service in more ways than 
one. Then, when I was prepared for them, came 
Channiug and Dewey and Noyes and Hedge and 
Clarke and Martineau and Theodore Parker. These 
all rendered me invaluable aid in completing the 
work which the others had so well begun. 



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» 

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number of partisans of useful knowledge, and to add recruits to the powerful 
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THE 



HOPES OF THE HUMAN RACE, 



HEEEAFTEE AMD HEEE. 



BY 



FRANCES POWER COBBE. 



NEW YORK : 

JAMES MILLER, PUBLISHER, 

647 Broadway. 
1876 



Published by JAMES MILLER, 647 Broadway. 



SERMONS 

BY 

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OP 

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These volumes may have been suggested by Coleridge'a 
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the vein lies much deeper here than there. There is a thread 
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topics are selected from life, and treated with great variety — 
some of them with philosophical discernment, skill, and 
thoroughness. The style is always pure, and the discussions 
dignified, through the most familiar and animated colloquies • 
while the dashes of humor impart geniality and zest The 
volumes are always entertaining and suggestive, whether read 
consecutively or taken up and opened at random for half 
*n hour's literary recreation. — Freewill Baptist Quarterly. 



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Drawing Book for Young Children. Containing One Hundred 
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Plato's Phsedo ; or, The Immortality of the Soul. Translated 

from the Greek, by Charles S. Stanford. With a Life of Plato, by Arch- 

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Paley's Evidences of Christianity. With Annotations by 
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The Complete Hand-Book of Etiquette for Ladies and Gen* 
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HOW TO WRITE CORRECTLY. 

The Fashionable Letter-Writer. Original and Selected, con- 
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The Gentleman's Letter-Writer. Embodying Letters of Love 
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